


Fornicatio Autem

by azriona



Series: The Medieval Omegaverse [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alpha John, Alpha Moriarty, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Arranged Marriage, Bonding, Dubious Consent, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega Sherlock, Omega Verse, and won't happen until later in the story but i want to warn everyone now, jus primae noctis, the dub-con is between Sherlock and Moriarty, 中文翻译 | Translation in Chinese
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-12
Updated: 2015-10-14
Packaged: 2018-04-20 09:21:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 50,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4782107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azriona/pseuds/azriona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>England, the 13th century.  John Watson and Sherlock Holmes have been betrothed since they were children, despite not knowing each other at all.  But Earl Moriarty has long desired Sherlock Holmes – and only one man can stand in the Earl’s way.  The question is – will he?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ladyprydian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyprydian/gifts).



> Thanks to earlgreytea68 for the beta, and to Kizzia for the Brit-pick – though admittedly, both these events occurred so long ago I’m sure both ladies have forgotten the story entirely. Thanks to shinyopals and ladyprydian for the title; without their assistance, I’d still be calling this story “the Medieval Omegaverse.” Thanks to marta-bee & countless Tumblr users for help with the historical accuracy, or about as much historical accuracy as you can reasonably expect in an Omegaverse story set in the medieval period that features a fictitious historical practice. I have listened to their helpful advice with great interest; any inaccuracies to the time period are entirely my own fault and not to be blamed on them.
> 
> So, one day over a year ago I was making my bed when I started thinking about the Omegaverse (you know, as you do), and the thought popped into my head, “Huh, I wonder what would happen if it was medieval times and James Moriarty tried to pull jus primae noctis on Sherlock and John?” And of course, the idea was so ridiculous (because most scholars agree that jus primae noctis was not an actual thing, let alone the concept of Omegaverse), that I had to post to Tumblr about it.
> 
> At which point, ladyprydian, because she is Evil, decided to bug me continuously about it. I don’t know where she got the idea that bothering an author continuously will actually convince them to write the story you want. I mean, it doesn’t really work, it’s certainly not how you get [stories about Sherlock and John on ice skates at the Olympics](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1185555) or [fighting vampires](https://www.tumblr.com/search/egt+needs+to+write+a+slayer+au). The practice is just as much a fallacy as jus primae noctis. Or Omegaverse.
> 
> Anyway, I figured the story would take about 6,000 words. I was only off by about 44,000.
> 
>  **Trigger Warning:** The concept of jus primae noctis is when the lord of an area claims the right of first night – basically, that he gets to sleep with the bride on her wedding night, her opinion (or that of her husband) notwithstanding. In Fornicatio Autem, Moriarty is going to claim it on Sherlock. Plus it’s Omegaverse… so prepare for some sexual things of a dub-con nature to occur. If you want more detailed information and you don’t mind spoilers, please don’t hesitate to contact me and I’ll be happy to elaborate – and above all, keep yourselves safe.
> 
>  
> 
> [Chinese Translation Available Here](http://www.mtslash.org/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=215251&extra=page%3D1%26filter%3Dtypeid%26typeid%3D85%26typeid%3D85) by ad50302742

“Tomorrow?” said Sherlock from the other side of the stone wall that surrounded his family’s home.  His eyes were bright and his cheeks were flushed.  His unruly curls peeked out from beneath the simple cotton coif, the ties undone and hanging on his shoulders.  Try as he might to keep his expression steady and solemn, John could see his mouth struggling not to smile.

 

“Sherlock!” his stepmother called, growing testy with repeated warnings.  The sun was already beginning to dip down below the horizon; John would have to hurry to be home before it was full dark, or he’d end up tripping and breaking his neck on one of the divots in the road. 

 

John grinned back at Sherlock.  It was easy to grin at Sherlock; it hadn’t been, the first time, but every time they’d met since the bonding date had been set two months before, John couldn’t help the grin that bubbled up warm from his stomach. 

 

“Tomorrow,” he agreed, and waited to make sure Sherlock made it all the way inside before he turned and headed for home.

 

*

 

Thursday dawned bright and early, and John opened his eyes when twelve-year-old Heryeth jumped on the bed, a flurry of skirts and shawls.

 

“Wake up, wake up, you lazy bones, you’re going to be bonded today!” she shouted as she scrabbled over the bedclothes.  “It’s your bonding day, you can’t _sleep_ , you have to wake up!”

 

“I’m awake, I’m awake!” John groaned, rolling over and kicking out blindly.  His legs tangled in the sheet, but the flailing had the benefit of knocking the girl off the bed entirely.  She fell to the floor with a thump and a squeal, and peeled out of the room, laughing as she descended the ladder to the parlour below. 

 

“John’s awake, John’s awake!” she called out to the rest of the family.  “And you should see what he’s giving to his omega tonight!”

 

John wondered what she meant – and then realized that the sheets had fallen away from his body in his struggle to wake up, and sure enough, his sleep shirt hadn’t left anything to anyone’s imagination.

 

“Harry, you brat!” John shouted after her, and fell back on the mattress with a thump, resisting the urge to do anything about the erection.  He’d have to save it for later; there wouldn’t be time to confess before the bonding ceremony that evening. 

 

 _Bonding day_ , he thought, just like he had every morning for the last few weeks.  Except the words felt more realistic this morning, what with sleeping in the bed he’d share with his bonded, in the room where they’d begin their lives together. 

 

“John!” called his mother from below, and John took a deep breath.  The erection seemed to have… flagged, if not completely gone away. 

 

“I’m up!” he called back, and swung his legs out of the bed. 

 

“So I’m given to understand,” replied his mother dryly.  “Breakfast is still hot, if you hurry.”

 

The solar still smelled faintly of the vinegar and soap John’s mother and omega siblings had used to scrub it clean the week previous; the ticking in the mattress still smelled freshly of hay and sunshine.  John had to crouch in order not to hit his head on the rafters; the solar had never really been intended to house people.  He padded to the window at the far end of the solar and threw open the heavy canvas curtain that blocked the window, and felt the cool breeze blow in.  He could see his father heading toward the brewery, where the fires were already going if the smoke was any indication, and John could see his younger alpha siblings carry in the water pails from the nearby river.  The sun was high enough, he’d slept half the morning away, surely, and still plenty to do before the bonding that night.

 

The room was new to him; until his mother’s cleaning spree, it had been used to store extra potatoes and onions and carrots.  Now it stored John’s meager possessions: his clothes, mostly, and John reached for his underthings and leggings, pulling them on under his shirt before reaching for the heavier wool tunic.  It was the end of summer, but there was a growing chill in the air all the same.

 

(“I don’t see the bother,” Hugh Watson had said when John’s mother had proposed it.

 

Hugh Watson had promptly received a swat on the back of his head.  “Don’t be an arse.  John will be a man grown, with an omega of his own, he’ll need his own space.”  John’s mother had smiled beatifically at John.  “If for no other reason than the rest of us can get a bit of sleep at night.”

 

John’s siblings had laughed uproariously.  John had blushed bright red.)

 

It was a nice enough room, John supposed. He’d only been in it the one night by himself, to make sure it would do.  That had been enough – not for the space itself, but the concept of sleeping alone, when previously, he’d been in with his siblings. 

 

Not anymore.  Though if his parents and siblings were all still in the parlour, just below the solar, it wasn’t as if they wouldn’t be aware of what happened above them anyway.

 

John decided not to think about it too hard.

 

“You shouldn’t have let me sleep,” John scolded his mother, already in a line with two of his omega siblings, scrubbing the floor in the great room. John’s 4-year-old sister, Cecily, crouched next to her older siblings, mimicking their movements with her tiny brush.  Peter, the very youngest, was asleep in a basket by the fire.

 

“You’ll be up all hours tonight, you’ll be grateful for it,” said John’s mother, and he sat up on his heels and surveyed the floor.  Wil Watson was known for having the cleanest, neatest house in the entire county – despite also having one of the largest broods.  Most men grew softer after each subsequent pregnancy – but not Wil.  John thought his mum went sharper for every child born, the lines around his eyes etched in a little more deeply, the concentration on having neat and tidy house, children, and yard much more important to his daily routine.

 

Which wasn’t to say that Wil was a difficult mum – not in the least.  John had no doubt he loved his children.  It was just that his way to express it was to give them another chore to do.  Such as scrubbing the hall floor in preparation for the wedding festivities – even if the festivities were to take place somewhere else.

 

“They’ll be up all hours _talking_ ,” giggled fourteen-year-old Margery to Victor over their scrub-brushes, and they hooted with laughter.

 

“Sherlock will narrate the whole heat,” added Victor through his giggles.  He was seventeen – old enough to be bonded himself, and likely would be before the year was out.  “Now John is putting his big alpha cock up against my leg.  Now John is testing to make sure I’m wet enough – John, have I soaked through the bedclothes yet?  No?  Then not enough, we’ll have to wait exactly three minutes at my current rate of lubrication….”

 

John’s ears were burning; it wouldn’t have surprised him much if Victor was right.  Victor knew Sherlock a great deal better than John did, since they’d been taking lessons together since they’d been small, and Sherlock’s mum had still been alive.  She’d been best of friends with Wil, when they were young, and John could vaguely remember her on the day the families had agreed to the bonding, how her smile had brightened the entire room at the thought of binding the families together through their children. 

 

It was all John really did remember of that day, seven years before.  He certainly didn’t remember Sherlock: just the bright happy smile on Sherlock’s mum’s face, her skin pale and the dark curl that escaped her coif.  John had liked her, hadn’t been able to take his eyes from her, and it was probably one of the last times he’d seen her before she died of the same bloody flux that had taken his two youngest siblings the following year. 

 

John didn’t see Sherlock often; there were few opportunities for young alphas and young omegas to mingle, outside of church, and John was too exhausted to do more than pray on Sundays.  When it came time to finalize the date, John had barely _known_ Sherlock.  But he did know the omega could _talk_. 

 

(“This bonding,” John had said to Sherlock the day before, when he’d slipped to the Holmes house in the gloaming, desperate for a private word with a boy he barely knew.  “I know we don’t know each other very well, so if you’d rather—”

 

“You fell from a height three weeks ago and pulled a muscle in your leg on the descent; you still limp when you’re thinking about it, but only when you think about it so it’s mostly in your head.  You have a fascination with King Arthur and his knights, and you lament being born a hundred years too late to join in the Crusades.  Most think it’s the glory you admire; really, it was the chance to travel to another land.  You’ve just come from town where you consulted with the local apothecary and I’ve already run tests on that particular herbal remedy in your pocket, it won’t do anything to soothe your mother’s toothache.  He’d best just ask to pull it and be done with it.  Or yourself – I dare say you’ve got gentler hands and a better bedside manner than Mr Stamford, or even my father, if your shoes are anything to go by.”

 

John stared at Sherlock.  “How do you know all that?  Did Vicky tell you?”

 

“Vicky doesn’t say anything worth knowing,” said Sherlock airily.  “As for me, I abhor housework, I can’t mend so much as a torn sleeve, I stay up late and I’ve been known to burn water.  Is that enough to be getting on with a bonding, do you think?”)

 

Victor and Margery were still giggling hard over their joke; John’s mother watched them with a wary eye.  Time before, he would have slapped them down fast enough, and it occurred to John quite suddenly that Wil waited to see how he – the alpha in the room – would handle them, before backing him up.

 

Almost as if he were an actual adult, instead of ready to play at being one.

 

“Shut it!” he snarled at his siblings, and went over to the fireplace to see how much porridge was left from breakfast.  It also had the very nice benefit of keeping his face turned away from them, to better hide the flush that had filled his cheeks.  John wasn’t sure if it was a result of his alpha temper rising to the surface, or embarrassment for displaying such lewd behavior in front of his mother.

 

Two-year-old Peter was deep asleep in his basket near the fire, his hands tucked under his chin.  Wil had sworn a blue streak that he’d be the last baby in the house.

 

(“Until John’s,” said Hugh, and Wil’s eyes had gone soft.

 

“Yes, that’ll do,” said Wil, and given John such a fond look that John had run for the brewery, his cheeks aflame.)

 

“Right-hand circles, Vicky,” said Wil sharply.  “And no talking if you can’t pay attention to your work.  No one wants a slovenly omega.”

 

“Yes, mum,” said Victor, still giggling, but at least he bent over the floor and kept working.

 

“Your father’s in the brewery, John,” continued Wil, and John heard him start working on the floor again.  “Plenty of work to be done before your bonding.”

 

No matter that there wasn’t much porridge left then.  John ripped a hunk of bread from the loaf on the mantel, and headed outside.

 

The day was bright with a strong breeze pushing the clouds from a sea-blue sky.  A perfect day, really, with the smell of yeast thick in the air.  John chewed on the bread contentedly, and relished the feel of the wind on his skin, ruffling his hair.  The air was warm, but John didn’t notice it – the brewery would be much warmer and wetter once he was inside.

 

Heryeth popped out of the brewery’s side door, carrying two empty water buckets.  She saw John and grinned, and turned back to shout.

 

“Da, John’s awake!”

 

“No thanks to you,” said John, and Harry stuck out her tongue just before fifteen-year-old Elraed gave her a shove down the steps.

 

“Move, rat,” said Elraed cheerfully, and Harry hopped out of his way.  John loved all his siblings, of course he did.  It was his Christian duty as well as his duty as the eldest alpha child to care for them.

 

But Elraed did make it difficult at times.  The girls might have giggled and gossiped, but at least they did their work with care.  Elraed, on the other hand, should have been in the brewery, learning the trade and helping their father with the ale, but instead he would slip off at a moment’s notice to the Manor House, where he’d hang about with the knights, doing Heaven knew what with his time.  Lazy and irresponsible, thought John.  They were brewer’s sons, and they’d be brewers when they became men, and it was fine for boys to dream about becoming something else instead, but Elraed was old enough for reality now.

 

Elraed’s hair had finally started to grow out from his attempt to shear it off, and the tawny hair curled at the ends.  He gave John a disparaging once-over and sighed as if disappointed in him.  “Look who didn’t have the sense to run when he still had the chance.  You’ll have to bond now.”

 

“He _wants_ to bond,” said Harry, and gave a violent shudder.  “ _I’m_ going to join a convent.”

 

“There’s none that would take you,” said Elraed.  “You’d make a rubbish monk; your robes would always be covered in dirt and you couldn’t ever remember the liturgy.”

 

Harry brushed the smudge of mud on the edge of her skirts; it didn’t do much good.  “The lord’s not really going to let you train with his knights, no matter what he says,” she snapped at her older brother.  “A good wind would knock you over.  If you tried to pick up a javelin, you’d end up falling on your arse.”

 

Elraed glared at her, instantly defensive.  “That’s not true!  Sir Sebastian promised me a fortnight ago.  He said he’d speak to Da once the summer’s over.  They’ll start training me up as a squire.  I’m going to be a knight someday, you watch!”

 

“Train you to shine their boots, more like,” snorted Harry, and Elraed dropped his empty bucket and advanced.

 

“You little—”

 

“Oh, nobody would take either of you layabouts,” countered John.  “Someone has to bond around here, and all you two are good for is carrying the water buckets.”

 

Elraed turned his glare onto John, and might have spoken the harsh words that John could see being formed in his throat, but was interrupted by a bellow from the brewery.  “And not even that much, if you aren’t back from the river with more water yet!”

 

Harry let out a squeak and ran pell-mell down the path, her buckets clattering against her legs.  Elraed took his time in picking up his buckets again before following her at a slightly more sedate pace.  He walked stiffly, as if his quick anger made his muscles ache.  John watched his younger brother for a moment, before he hopped up the steps and into the brewery.

 

It was dark and smoky; walking into the brewery had always reminded John a bit of what it must have been like to walk into the first ring of Hell.  The heat hit him like a sodden blanket, and he found it hard to breathe at first.  The room was thick with the scent of smoke and yeast, the sharp tang of the wheat and oats as it cooked down. 

 

Hugh Watson stirred one of the larger cauldrons with a long wooden stick, dark with age.  He was only a little taller than John himself, but far more rotund, with a face that seemed to be permanently reddened from working in the sun and the brewery all day.  He didn’t look up from his work, instead measuring the time of the bubbles in the pot, and John shoved the last bit of bread into his mouth as he approached.

 

“Plenty of time for you to lay abed with your bonded tomorrow,” said Hugh Watson, a bit sternly, but not unkindly.  “I had to add the yeast to yesterday’s wort myself.”

 

“Elraed could probably do it.”

 

Hugh snorted, clearly not believing it.  “Skim the bram, and take it in to your mother.  You’ll want bread at your bonding feast, I’m sure.”

 

Skimming the bram was one of Elraed’s jobs, and John recognized it for the chastising it was meant to be.  “Yes, Da.”

 

He was done skimming the yeasty-smelling bram and nearly out the door before Hugh spoke again.

 

“You’ll go with me to market today.”

 

John paused at the door, just as Elraed and Harry returned with their buckets of water.  “Da?”

 

“You heard,” said Hugh, before turning his attention to his other alpha children on the far side of the brewery.  “Oi, what are you lot doing?  The water goes in the _empty_ pot, not the wort I just finished making!  Are you trying to destroy an entire batch of my livelihood?”

 

“It’s Elraed’s market day, not mine,” said John, still confused.

 

Elraed’s head snapped up.  “ _John_ goes to the market?”

 

“ _You_ can’t even carry water,” Hugh said scathingly to his son.  “The last time I took you to the market you were so busy lusting after the lordship’s knights, you let half a barrel go without payment.”

 

“That’s not what—”

 

“No lip out of you!  I need _John’s_ opinion on an important matter.  You can assist your mother with transporting the ale to the Holmes household for the party this evening.”

 

For a moment, it looked as if Elraed was going to say something – his chest puffed up and his eyes went wide – and then he turned back to the half-full pot of water, and continued pouring the buckets in.

 

“We’ll leave as soon as Elraed finishes loading the cart,” said Hugh.

 

Elraed said nothing.

 

*

 

The Manor House was a half-hour outside of the town.  As long as the day was fine, it was a pleasant journey, but it was never one Sherlock particularly liked to make.  There were so many better things to do than sit on his father’s old nag while his father walked alongside, stare at the horizon and try desperately not to throw up from the constant motion. 

 

Worse today because his nerves were already at a high.  Sherlock had woken with the strange churning in his abdomen, the odd cramps that didn’t precisely hurt so much as they made his entire body shiver, while goosebumps covered his flesh.  His muscles were achy and anxious; he couldn’t sit still for wanting to _move_ , to stretch and flex the muscles.  To _run_ , that would be best, not that anyone would let him. 

 

There was no possible way he could sit up on the saddle.  Instead, he leaned on Bits’s scratchy mane, feeling the warm horseflesh below it.  The smell wasn’t particularly unpleasant; it was almost reassuring in its familiarity.  As long as his eyes were closed, the rolling and rocking was comforting, pushing his aching muscles this way and that.  The only problem was that Sherlock would rather have been able to _see_. 

 

Somewhere, John was looking at the same sky.  Probably marking time by the church bells, too.  It’d been six hours left before their bonding when they’d started out for the Manor House; they’d been traveling for approximately five thousand days so it couldn’t be more than five and a half hours left now.

 

“Your mother would have loved to see this day,” said Godwin Holmes, and Sherlock’s eyes popped open in surprise.  Godwin didn’t talk about his mother that often; certainly not in his stepmother’s hearing.

 

Just as quickly as he opened his eyes, however, Sherlock had to close them.  The horizon rocked back and forth under the brilliantly blue sky, and sent his stomach lurching.  Sight was clearly overrated.

 

“She loved Wil Watson like a brother,” continued Godwin.  “I was jealous of that affection for years.”

 

“I know,” said Sherlock, a bit irritable from the uncomfortable ride and the repetition of the story he’d heard every week for nearly his entire life.  “It’s why she named me for him, and why you refused to call me anything but _Sherlock_.”

 

“It suits you better,” said Godwin.  “Even if the blond curls you were born with fell out before you were two.  But then I never saw them together, not until we returned from London, and understood the difference between _philia_ and _eros_.”

 

Sherlock tried to remember his mother; she’d died when he was eleven, it shouldn’t have been difficult.  All he could really remember, though, was a soft and knowing smile and a gentle hand on his cheek.  It was as if he’d wiped away every memory of her when she’d died.

 

“I don’t remember London,” said Sherlock, a bit sourly.  “I don’t understand why you left.”

 

 _If you’d stayed,_ he thought morosely, _she might not have caught the bloody flux and died._

“It was time,” said Godwin Holmes mildly.  “And I obtained a good position here.  It’s worked out quite well for you, at least – John Watson is a good man.”

 

Sherlock scoffed.  “He’s a _boy_.”

 

“He’s twenty-one; that’s hardly a boy any longer.  You’ll make a good man of him.”

 

“I’m not even good myself,” said Sherlock, irritable.  “Or I’d be the one walking and you riding the horse.”

 

Godwin chuckled.  “With your heat coming on?  You’d never go five steps, lad.  I can do with stretching my legs a bit.  Easier to look at the sky if I’m not jostled back and forth, as well.”

 

Sherlock scowled; it was true enough, he might be able to walk between home and the village church under his own power, but he’d never have managed to walk clear to the Manor House, not with the way his knees felt weak and his head spinning as it did.  His father had given him an infusion of mint-and-fennel tea that morning; it had barely taken off the edge. 

 

Then again, thought Sherlock, it wasn’t his _stomach_ that ached him.  Chamomile was useful in labour – perhaps it would be useful to calm the body prior to estrus, as well?

 

Sherlock knew the moment they passed through the rounded archway that led into the inner courtyard of the Manor House.  The sun no longer beat heavily on his cheeks; he could feel the coolness of the stone above him, and he breathed out a sigh of relief, even as he felt the unease of feeling somehow as if he’d walked straight into a trap. 

 

“Up, Sherlock, we’re here,” said Godwin, as Bits came to a halt.  The rocking motion disappeared, though Sherlock’s stomach still shifted back and forth, enough that he misjudged his own strength and sat up so quickly his coif caught on the nag’s mane and slid off his curls easily.  Sherlock scrambled to grab it and fix it back on his head, staring around him at the activity in the expansive courtyard. 

 

The Manor House was easily the largest structure anywhere in the county – had it been closer to the village, it would have easily dwarfed the church, which was impressive next to the hovels and small dwellings nearby.  When he’d been small, Sherlock had always pictured grand castles and palaces from the stories to be slightly brighter, more expansive versions of the Manor House, which he thought was certainly large enough for any king and his queen, let alone the earl who actually lived in it.  The Manor House was dark and imposing, with windows that were always shuttered and candles that were always sputtering alone in their corners.  The thick oak doors were heavy and secured by dark metal locks.  It was, Sherlock had always thought, a bit more like a fortress than an actual house.  The doors always slammed behind him when he entered, and he’d have a small moment of panic before remembering that eventually, he would be able to leave.

 

The word _courtyard_ was something of a misnomer; perhaps the space had been entirely enclosed at one point in time, but now all that remained was the great hall in front of them – where the earl lived and worked and did whatever else an earl did with his time – as well as a few outer buildings, to include the stables on the far left, and the kitchens, which were connected to the main building by a hastily built passageway, which existed more for the benefit of the food that was carried in it than the comfort of the servants who carried it.

 

The earl’s knights and guardsmen were on the other side of the courtyard, near the entrance to the stables.  Half a dozen of them practiced with their swords and shields, clanging and rattling and laughing as they attacked each other’s shins.  Another half dozen of them loitered along the benches and beams along the base of the house, laughing and providing color commentary and unhelpful suggestions.  Sherlock narrowed his eyes, watching them; he thought he could see John and Vicky’s younger brother with them, tall and reedy and moving with greater alacrity and precision than Vicky ascribed to him.  He looked up at the knights with clear admiration and longing; no great secret there, thought Sherlock, and wondered, briefly, how much of his dowry might pay for Elraed’s training and provisions – assuming Hugh Watson would even allow such a thing. Sherlock had the idea that Hugh Watson had plans for Sherlock’s dowry that did not include his second alpha son’s daydreams.

 

Only one knight didn’t sit with the rest.  He laughed with the others, as if merely playing at jovial, but his eyes were focused squarely on Sherlock.  He wasn’t particularly tall or short, scarred or whole, and the stubble was uneven on his cheeks, giving him a rather unfinished air.  His hair was faintly damp from sweat, his clothes fine with few repairs.  But for some reason, his gaze made Sherlock want to stare back defiantly.  Sherlock’s cheeks burned.  He tried to hold the older man’s stare, and almost managed it, when the man’s lips turned upwards, as if he was amused at Sherlock’s bravado.

 

Sherlock’s stomach twisted uncomfortably.  His entire body felt…less, somehow.  Empty.  The hollow chalice the priest spoke about on Sundays, waiting to be filled.

 

“Come along, then, lad,” said Godwin Holmes kindly, which was enough to pull Sherlock back to reality.  Sherlock shook off the odd spell as if it was a fine film of dust.  “Best not to keep Mistress Molly waiting.”

 

“Yes, Father,” said Sherlock immediately.  Anything to get into the Manor House – which wasn’t so much protection, but at least was somewhat safer than the courtyard at the moment, what with the bold and brash knight on the other side of it.

 

Sherlock had only just descended from the horse when the door to the kitchens opened and a face peered out.  “There you are, shake a leg, Godwin Holmes, the earl’s been asking for you.”  The woman’s wimple cracked in the strong breeze.  “Sherlock, duck, you look peaky.”

 

“Mistress Hudson,” said Sherlock politely, even as his father sped quickly past the housekeeper, clearly anxious to attend to his lordship without even a word to his son.  No matter; Sherlock disliked the Manor House, but he’d been visiting since he was able to walk.  He knew its secrets better than anyone else – possibly better than the earl himself.  “We’re here to collect my bonding costume.”

 

The Mistress Hudson’s eyes brightened and she burst into a smile.  “Oh, that’s right, today’s the bonding, is it?  Come in before the wind takes you off, it’s been howling at the windows all morning.”

 

The Manor House scullery was warm and close; there was a long table running through its center, and the thick wooden slab was scrubbed clean, with one end piled high with plates and serving platters and goblets waiting to be put away.  The scullery was thick with the scent of herbs and onion, the yeasty smell of freshly baked bread and the lord’s own strong ale.

 

 (“You smell like growing things,” Sherlock had told John frankly.  His stepmother had cautioned him to be shy and careful with his betrothed; Sherlock forgot every word upon actually meeting John.  “You usually work with the yeast in the brewery, but not this morning.  This morning you were in the fields cutting the wheat.  One of the wheels on the cart was faulty; you had to fix it back on.  And you tripped and fell – I think over a brick, or smaller sibling, I can’t quite tell.”

 

John had grinned.  “The yeast gets into everything.  I don’t think the smell ever gets out of your skin, when you live right on top of it.  How’d you know all that?”

 

John’s immediate validation was heady.  “Obvious,” said Sherlock, his thoughts swirling hard, and he was struck with delayed shyness, John’s grin cutting through his boldness.  “You…you don’t mind?  That I see all that when I see you?”

 

“I think it’s brilliant,” said John, and Sherlock beamed.)

 

Clearly the kitchen staff was hard at work, with a set of beta girls at one end of the table, scrubbing the potatoes that were piled nearby.  A half a dozen chicken carcasses were laid out on the board, already seasoned and waiting for their turn in the outdoor ovens for roasting.  Another set of betas were closer to the ovens, kneading and rolling dozens of rolls, one after the other, while a single servant sat nearest the fire, turning a large roast over the oven on a spit.  He looked half asleep, though he woke enough to give Sherlock a look before turning back to his tedious chore. 

 

Mistress Hudson sat Sherlock down at the table, and within a minute was slathering butter on a thick slice of bread.  She set it in front of Sherlock with the admonition, “Eat!  You’re far too skinny; a proper omega would have a bit of meat on him.”

 

“I’m not a proper omega,” said Sherlock stubbornly, but he picked up the food and ate.  It wouldn’t fill the hollowness inside, but it would help.

 

“And I’m not your chaperone but tell that to your father,” said Mistress Hudson. She was about to sit down and commence working again, but instead, watching Sherlock shove the bread and butter into his mouth, set to making him another slice.

 

 _Three_ other slices, after barely a moment of contemplation.

 

“Proper omegas are demure and defer in all things to their alphas,” recited Sherlock as soon as he swallowed.  “They are adept in all things dealing with housewifery, and are fully committed to the rearing of children and keeping one’s hearth and home neat, tidy, and welcoming.”

 

Mistress Hudson raised her eyebrows.  “And don’t you sound as if you’ve been listening to the sermon on Sundays.”

 

“I’d rather test the flammability of various type of chaff than sweep it out of the house,” said Sherlock honestly.  He frowned, thoughtful.  “ _Would_ chaff burn brighter than wood, do you think, Mistress Hudson?  Or at least longer?  No, it’d be quicker, wouldn’t it…but I expect it might let off a particular scent.  I can’t determine if it’d be pleasant, though, and you’d likely have to burn great quantities of it before it would be noticeable.  I expect it’d let off too much smoke at that point to make it worth the effort—”

 

Mistress Hudson burst into laughter.  “Sherlock Holmes, you’re going to set fire to your new house before the week is out, you will, just for the sake of being bored!”

 

Sherlock waved a hand in the air.  “Of course not.  Now, the brewery – there’s fires in there that keep going all night, Mistress Hudson, and I expect no one would notice if I were try to my hand at boiling down a bit of honey and yeast and water together.”

 

Mistress Hudson set the potatoes down on the table with a thump.  “If I didn’t know better I’d say you finagled yourself an occupation instead of an alpha!”

 

Sherlock didn’t argue.  He might not have been a _proper_ omega, but he knew better than to talk with his mouth full.  Besides, the bread was lovely, and far better than anything he could have received anywhere in the village; the crust was crisp and flaky in the best of ways, scratching the insides of his mouth and crumbling down his chin.  Inside, the bread was soft and still faintly warm, a bit gummy from being sliced before cooling properly but no less delicious for it.  It’d be lighter when properly cooled, more air pockets than bread itself, the stuff of angels, but Sherlock liked it better this way, chewy and thick with the salty, fresh, sharp butter that melted straight through and down his fingers.  Far finer and delicate than the brown bread his stepmother baked, or even the thick, yeasty bram bread that John’s mother made, which no doubt would be his standard fare for the foreseeable future.

 

No, it wouldn’t fill that empty feeling deep inside of him.  That was a task for John, after the bonding ceremony.  But Sherlock wasn’t about to stop trying when Mistress Hudson set another plate of buttered bread in front of him.

 

“Your father is likely lost in his books, no doubt,” sighed Mistress Hudson when Sherlock had nearly finished the entire loaf of bread, and there was nothing left of the butter.  “Wipe the butter off your hands and I’ll take you up to Mistress Molly; it wouldn’t do to destroy your new fine things before you’ve even had a chance to wear them.  I expect your alpha will do that soon enough himself.”

 

Sherlock would have retorted something, but his mouth was still full of the last bite of bread and butter, and even if he wasn’t a proper omega, he was at least not _rude_.

 

“I can find my own way,” he said as he wiped his fingers on the linen serviette.

 

“I may not be your chaperone but at least I know how to play the part,” said Mistress Hudson sternly.  “You might know your way around this house, young man, but let’s not forget you don’t belong to it.”

 

*

 

Mistress Molly did not work in the servant’s quarters, but then she was not precisely a servant.  She jobbed in at various times of the year to refit the lord and his household in silks and furs and livery, and the rest of the year, she presumably did the same in other households.  She was expert at cutting up old bits of clothes to create new ones, removing stains that had been set for years, and creating burial shrouds out of nothing at all. 

 

She was young and pretty and free in a way that Sherlock envied, because as a beta, she attracted no one’s notice and was able to appear in public without a chaperone or husband or bonded mate – if she were even so lucky as to obtain the last two, which was doubtful.  Betas might bear children, but it wasn’t quite the guarantee that omegas presented.  Look at Sherlock’s mother, who’d given her husband only two sons, seven years apart. Godwin had mourned her properly, much longer than had been her due… and then bonded an omega and within a year had produced a son.  Sherlock’s stepmother would be pregnant again before the year was out, Sherlock had no doubt.

 

It was pure luck that Mistress Molly was at the Manor House in the month before Sherlock’s bonding, but it was her own softness for Sherlock himself that had prompted her to agree to make his betrothal clothes.  He was quite certain she had quoted a price far less than what the clothes were actually worth, because certainly his father would never have been able to afford them otherwise.  He only hoped that Molly had resisted her urge to cover them in gold and silver braid; he’d shine so brightly that John might go blind.

 

“There you are,” said Mistress Molly from where she sat near the window, a bit of embroidery in her lap.  “I’m just putting on the finishing bits now.”

 

Sherlock eyed the tunic in her hands.  He had expected something serviceable: dark blue, or green, or even a very deep red.  Not this.

 

“Purple,” he said, almost in awe.  “My father requested…purple?”

 

Purple was a royal color.  Commoners didn’t wear _purple_.

 

Mistress Molly’s cheeks burned pink.  “You mustn’t let it go to your head.”

 

“Seventeen years too late for that,” sighed Mistress Hudson.  “Let’s just get the rest of it on you, dear, we should make sure it all fits well before you go.”

 

Cotton leggings, dark grey and soft to the touch.  His fingers ran roughly along the fabric, catching as he pulled them on.  Mistress Hudson looked askance at him, but said nothing, and Sherlock tried to ignore what she didn’t say.  _Your alpha would want an omega with smooth hands, not those rough fingers which will scratch him in the night._

 

A long, cream-white shirt that fell and flared gently above his hips, still slim for his years.  _A proper omega would have wider hips, the better to bear the children that will come_.

 

The kirtle, a pale echo of the purple that Mistress Molly was only now finishing.  Thick straps rested on his shoulders, fell in a heavy layer over his shirt and his leggings halfway down his shins, and cut on an angle so that it was longer in back than it was in front.  Mistress Hudson adjusted the white sleeves of his shirt, pulling the excess fabric from under the kirtle so that everything lay smooth and proper, and Sherlock rested his hands on his waist, and turned back and forth in place, feeling the skirt sway with him.

 

“Come out when you’re ready,” called Mistress Molly, and Sherlock stepped out quickly, before he could think about anything else.

 

The tunic was splendid: purple so dark that it might have been black in dimmer light, worked over in black thread in a diagonal pattern, emphasized by small glass beads.  Sherlock saw the matching sleeves still sitting by the window, and they were equally ornate without being ostentatious. 

 

The tunic went over his head…but not quite. 

 

“Oh dear,” said Mistress Molly worryingly.  “The neck’s too small.  There’s a ribbon, if I could reach it.”

 

“Curse him for being so tall,” said Mistress Hudson, her voice oddly thick and high-pitched, as if she were trying not to laugh or cry.  “I’ll fetch a stool.”

 

“Yes, thank you.”

 

Sherlock waited impatiently inside the tunic.  The fabric might have been grand on the exterior, but on the inside, it was hot and humid and itched terribly.

 

“There,” said Mistress Molly at last, as the neckline loosened and the entire tunic dropped down on Sherlock’s shoulders.

 

Sherlock opened his eyes to see Earl Moriarty standing in the doorway.

 

“Incredible,” breathed the lord of the manor, and on either side of Sherlock, Mistress Molly and Mistress Hudson went down into deep curtseys.  Sherlock lifted his chin for a long moment – and then putting his foot ahead, went down into a bow.

 

“Stay there,” said Earl Moriarty.  “I have just the thing.”

 

Sherlock felt the lord’s fingers deep in his hair, circling his head as if it was a present and the lord was ready to pluck it out of its ornamental box.  They rested there, pressing lightly against his skull, and then they were gone – but some weight remained tangled in the curls.

 

Sherlock rose, carefully, so as not to dislodge whatever was on his head. 

 

“Oh,” breathed Mistress Molly, staring up at Sherlock’s hair.  “They’re lovely.”

 

“Orange blossoms,” said Earl Moriarty, staring hungrily at Sherlock.  “Quite traditional on one’s bonding day.”

 

“It’s too much, my lord,” said Godwin Holmes, standing behind Earl Moriarty.  “They’re lovely, but we can’t possibly accept such a fine and expensive gift….”

 

“You’re quite right,” said Earl Moriarty, and he reached out to the flower crown atop Sherlock’s head.  His fingers were gentle – right up to when they tightened on Sherlock’s curls, pulling against his scalp in a sharp burn that only intensified as Moriarty’s lips quivered in an almost-smile.  Sherlock clenched his teeth together tightly in an effort to keep silent, and dared not move a muscle. 

 

Earl Moriarty’s mouth quirked upward, just a bit, and he yanked hard.  Sherlock felt the fingers slide down his hair, and then saw the orange blossom in Moriarty’s hand.

 

“That’s better.  One less blossom, and now it’s perfect.”

 

“My lord,” began Godwin Holmes, but Moriarty dropped the blossom on the ground and brushed his hands as if the flower were no more luxurious or important than a speck of dirt.

 

“Enough, Holmes, the boy has been coming to my house since he was able to walk.  Surely I can give him a betrothal present if I wish?  You wouldn’t… _deny_ me, would you, Holmes?”

 

Godwin Holmes lowered his eyes, chastised.  Seeing his father so made Sherlock uneasy.  “No, sir, of course not.”

 

“We understand each other then.”

 

“You’re welcome to attend the festivities, my lord, though of course they won’t be up to your usual standards of entertainment—”

 

“Oh,” said Earl Moriarty, giving Sherlock another look, “I think my presence would only disturb the villagers, don’t you think?  Everyone would have a better time if I were elsewhere.  Wouldn’t you agree, young Master Holmes?”

 

Sherlock stared at the lord.  “I do, my lord.”

 

“You do,” said Earl Moriarty softly.  No one else seemed to catch the dangerous note in his tone – or perhaps it was something about the gleam in his eyes.  “From the mouths of babes.  Or those who will bear them.  On the morrow, Holmes.”

 

“Yes, my lord,” said Godwin, as Earl Moriarty swept out of the room, crushing the dropped orange blossom with his foot as he went.  Sherlock thought he had stepped out of his way to flatten it, but no one else noticed.

 

“Orange blossoms,” breathed Mistress Molly, and she reached out as if to touch them, but stopped before she did.  “I never thought….”

 

“There’s a box in the larder, you can use it to carry them home so they won’t be crushed,” said Mistress Hudson.

 

“Should we take them off now?” worried Mistress Molly.

 

“The sleeves first,” said Sherlock.  His mouth was exceedingly dry; he wondered if anyone would let him drink anything while wearing his finery.

 

“Oh!”  Mistress Molly jumped a bit, as if the sleeves had entirely escaped her notice, and turned back to the window.

 

Godwin Holmes remained in front of Sherlock, staring at him as if he’d never seen anything like him before in his life.

 

Sherlock tried to swallow.  “I…do I please you, Father?”

 

Godwin Holmes opened his mouth to speak – and could say not a word.  He swallowed, and the skin around his eyes crinkled as his entire face seemed to flex and work to find the proper thing to say.

 

“Very much so,” he said, with a voice thick with emotion.  “Yes, lad.  Very much so.”


	2. Chapter 2

John had hoped to catch a glimpse of Sherlock when they went through the village, but neither Sherlock nor his father were at home.  He did see Sherlock’s stepmum at the church, determinedly sweeping the steps and path where the bonding ceremony would take place later that day, while the baby slept under a tree nearby.

 

The cart bumped over the rough road on the way home.  John walked along behind it in case any of the now empty barrels fell out.  It was just as well none of them did; it was unlikely John would have noticed if they had, as he spent most of the walk lost in thought.

 

Lost in thinking about Sherlock, really.

 

He’d known Sherlock all his life, but he’d only really spoken to him twice.  Victor knew Sherlock better: they were contemporaries, two omega boys from similar class backgrounds and with similar desires for better things.  Victor had been folded into life in the Holmes household so easily, falling in with Sherlock’s reading lessons and inventing tales of adventurous knights and chivalrous thieves.  The boys had been in trouble nearly as often as they’d been painted to be angels; John remembered some kind of adventure with a goose that had eaten the priest’s ring one Christmas.  Sherlock and Victor had managed to determine which goose had done the deed, and the priest had been overjoyed not to kill the entire flock, but John was fairly sure one of the two had been responsible for the ring being eaten in the first place.

 

Even after the betrothal, when Sherlock was ten and John fourteen, they hadn’t really spoken.  Sherlock had been a scrap of a boy at ten, still scrawny and ungainly, more interested in catching the frogs down by the river than childbearing.  John had been trying to learn how to brew the ale so that it didn’t taste like shite, and desperate to forget he even _had_ younger brothers who were more annoying than they were helpful.  If anything, the betrothal made John want to talk to Sherlock _less_ – and for all the advances that Sherlock did not make, it seemed he felt the same.

 

That had been a lifetime ago, before the bloody flux that had taken Sherlock’s mother, and John’s littlest siblings, and a quarter of the village besides. 

 

It wasn’t until the date was set, some seven years after it’d first been agreed upon, that John really thought of Sherlock as anything but his brother’s friend.  That had been a month before, and the first conversation with Sherlock had certainly been the longest, and very nearly been the last. 

 

Sherlock had been late, which hadn’t seemed to surprise anyone, and John, who had made every effort to look his best, despite the way his heart had pounded up into his ears, couldn’t decide if he was grateful or insulted by the delay.  It might have been a confusing mix of both. Godwin Holmes was kind enough – not the least bit stuffy or obnoxious, despite his learning and his employment at the Manor House.  John suffered through most of the discussions, which focused on the terms of the betrothal: the dowry Sherlock would bring with him and what form it would take, the details of the bonding ceremony, the living arrangements Hugh Watson would provide.

 

They’d been talking for hours; Sherlock was nowhere to be seen, and the room was hot and horrible, and John wanted to be anywhere but within it.

 

“There is the matter of Sherlock’s yearly allotment from the monastery,” said Godwin Holmes, and for some reason, this caught John’s attention.

 

“Allotment?” asked Hugh Watson.  “Of what sort?”

 

“Two books per annum,” said Godwin, the pride evident, and John sat up sharply.

 

“ _Two_? What for?”

 

Godwin turned to John as if surprised he was even there.  “To continue his education, of course.  Most are allowed only one per annum, but Sherlock is—”  And here Godwin smiled, as through proud.  “He is quite clever.”

 

“I see no reason why he shouldn’t be allowed to continue with it,” said Hugh.  “As long as time allows; he may find his new life to put a strain on his free time.  At any rate, it will depend on whether or not he could go to the monastery to fetch them – I’m not sure his dowry will stretch to another donkey, much less another horse.”

 

“Aren’t I allowed to have an opinion on what his dowry buys?” said John.  “I’m the one bonded to him.”

 

Hugh Watson colored slightly, and Godwin’s eyebrows rose, but before either of them could say a word, there was the pounding of feet racing down the hall.  Godwin sighed deeply, and covered his face with a hand just as the feet stopped – barely a moment later, the door opened and Sherlock appeared, still breathing heavily, but clearly having taken a moment to compose himself.  His cheeks were flushed and his coif was slightly askew; his shirt had streaks of green that looked remarkably like grass stains, and there might have been bits of leaves in his hair.  His expression, however, was a picture-perfect vision of decorum and modesty.

 

“Ah, Sherlock,” said Godwin, his voice oddly strained, as if he couldn’t decide whether to laugh, cry, or shout.  He waved his son over to join them.  “Come and meet your betrothed.  We were just discussing your education.”

 

Sherlock sat across from John.  He looked squarely at John, and folded his hands atop each other on the table.

 

“You do not approve of an omega who can read?” said Sherlock, perfectly calm, though there was a note of danger in his voice.  As if he fully expected John to confirm his analysis.  “Ah, no, I see.  You do not approve of an omega who is cleverer than you are.  Typical.”

 

John felt his blood rise, just a bit.  “I didn’t say that.  But there’s not much use for book learning in our household.  I’m sure whatever you’ve learned up to now will be more than sufficient, and any further learning just an impediment to you being happy.”

 

Sherlock raised an eyebrow.  “Until now, my _happiness_ was far more dependent on my access to reading and writing materials.  I take it you believe that bonding to you will change my point of view?”

 

“Isn’t that the point?  Aren’t omegas supposed to cleave to their alphas?”

 

“And alphas are to care and provide for what the omegas require.  I require sufficient time and space to conduct my learning and research.”

 

“And I require an omega who isn’t going to spend his entire day wandering in the woods and neglecting the housekeeping,” snapped John.

 

“Watson!” said Godwin Holmes brightly, as if the argument occurring between the boys was only in their imagination.  “There is some manner of mold in my kitchen garden, would you come have a look?  I have little experience with such things.”

 

“Of course,” said Hugh Watson, hastily rising from the table.  “We should let the boys get to know each other.”

 

“I don’t need to know him,” said John stubbornly.

 

“Of course, they can hardly learn about each other if we’re standing over them,” said Godwin.  “Sherlock, treat your guest kindly.”

 

“I always treat my guests kindly,” said Sherlock stubbornly. 

 

Godwin tweaked his son’s ear, though he did it lovingly, and it didn’t appear to hurt.  It did deepen Sherlock’s scowl.  “No, you don’t.”

 

The fathers left the room, chatting companionably to each other.  They left the door open, and John could see straight through to the hall, where Sherlock’s stepmother was rocking the cradle, half an eye on her knitting, half an eye on the two of them.

 

Sherlock glared at John, but the scowl wavered, as if he was pondering some course of action.  John waited, tense, wondering what he’d do.

 

“Well,” said Sherlock finally.  “Come on!”

 

Sherlock was up and gone in a flash, his feet pounding against the floor.  John blinked, unsure what he was meant to do – they couldn’t actually _go_ anywhere unescorted, could they? – and then saw the smile quirk at Goodwife Holmes’s lips. 

 

John was up and out of the room in an instant, and only just managed to catch a glimpse of Sherlock as he disappeared into the parlour.  It might have been private to the family – but John was nearly family, wasn’t he?  He followed, just in time to see Sherlock shimmy up the ladder into the solar above.

 

“Where are you going?  Slow down!”

 

Sherlock didn’t answer; in fact, he seemed to move even faster, and John scurried after him.  By the time he had climbed the ladder and stood on the rafters, Sherlock was sitting in the open window, back to the world, and grinning at him.

 

“What are you doing?” scolded John.  “Are you completely mad?  Get away from there, you’ll fall and break your neck.”

 

Sherlock didn’t answer.  Instead, he reached up – and disappeared.

 

Disappeared _up_.

 

John ran to the window and peered out, cautiously.  His hands gripped the sill tightly.  This was higher than he’d ever been – and the ground looked distressingly hard and far away.

 

But Sherlock was nowhere to be seen. 

 

John leaned a little further out.  “Sherlock?”

 

Silence, except for the soft sounds of something on the roof – a rat, scurrying about, most likely.

 

But Sherlock had disappeared _up_.  And John was fairly sure that even male omegas couldn’t fly.

 

He twisted his neck and looked up.  There, just above the window, was a rope, with knots tied at regular intervals.  The thatch where the rope fell over the rooftop was broken and worn away, exactly as if it’d been regularly beaten down by something dragged over it repeatedly.

 

About the same width as a human body.

 

John didn’t look back down at the ground; he didn’t dare.  Instead, he cautiously moved his hands along the side of the sill until he had worked his way around the top, and then, taking a deep breath and a leap of faith – very nearly literally – reached up and grasped the rope.  It held tight, and slowly, John began to hoist himself up.

 

The few minutes when John’s feet no longer touched the windowsill, and just before he was able to pull himself onto the roof were undoubtedly the most frightening of John’s life.  He swung back and forth in an arc that felt particularly wide, but couldn’t have been more than a few inches on either side, and it seemed like ages before he felt the hand on his forearm, grasping him tightly.

 

Sherlock’s face peered over the edge of the rooftop, with a delighted grin.

 

“Come on, then,” he repeated, and it was no longer a challenge but a jovial battle-cry, and he helped John scramble up onto the roof, where John fell on his back and stared up at the bright sky, breathing hard.  Sherlock sat next to him, and began shredding a bit of straw.

 

“Mycroft would stand below and shout for days.  He was too fat to hoist himself up,” said Sherlock, and now his tone was friendly and fully satisfied, if a bit derisive of Mycroft.  “I wasn’t sure if it was an alpha trait or not.  Perhaps it was just Mycroft.”

 

“Mycroft?”

 

“My brother.  He’s a chancery clerk in London for some duke or other. No stomach for surgery, blood makes him faint.”  Sherlock scoffed and kicked out his legs.  “If _I_ were an alpha… do you have your breath yet?  Sit up, I want you to look at something.”

 

John struggled up.  The thatch was hard and uncomfortable, bits and pieces poking through his clothing. It kept trying to catch his clothes and rip them, and John had to loosen his tunic and shirt several times.  Moreover, it was slippery and sharply angled, with little to grip.  John swallowed hard and tried to keep his focus directly on the thatch.

 

“I think it’s time to get down,” he said firmly, but Sherlock rolled his eyes.

 

“I tear my clothes all the time,” said Sherlock answering a question that John hadn’t even properly thought yet.  “Isobel never shouts, she just sighs.  All right, look over there, tell me what you see.”

 

John looked up, and caught his breath.

 

It was not that the horizon seemed quite so far as it did from the ground – but more that John could see nearly everything that was in between the Holmes house and that far-off point in a very clear way.  The village lay to the right, and from the rooftop, it looked like a tangle of thatched rooftops – little mounds of hay surrounding the church tower which still rose high above them.  From here, John could see into the passages between the houses – he could even see _into_ some of the houses, and certainly into the yards that surrounded them.  If he squinted, he could make out the plants Anders had planted in his garden; the change in coloration of the thatch on the Makepeaces’ roof, where it had burned the previous year.  The newly dug graves in the cemetery, and a figure walking slowly between them – the priest, if the robes were any indication, and John watched as the priest stopped to talk to someone who popped out of the newly dug holes for a proper chin-wag.

 

And beyond the village, John could see the road that lead into the distance to the Watson property.  John knew the road well; had traveled it his entire life, sometimes daily.  He knew every bump, every twist, every divot, and had anyone told him there was something about the road he did not know, he would have laughed in their face.

 

But now, from the view atop the Holmes roof, he could see the road sharply against the vibrant green countryside; the brown pathway looked smooth and graceful, twisting and turning this way and that.  Bits that appeared perfectly straight on the ground now appeared to be slightly curved; a turn that John had always considered extremely sharp was actually the road nearly doubling back on itself.  John looked for the bumps and divots, and could not see them from his vantage point; all the irregularities blended into themselves to form a perfect whole.

 

“The _other_ way, John,” said Sherlock with impatient amusement, and John somehow tore his eyes away from the road he thought he’d known to look in the other direction.

 

The road to the Manor House went right by the Holmes house, which was on the very edge of the village.  John followed it easily, through the fields, and on to the Manor itself, perched on a hill that seemed to give it a better vantage point than from anywhere else.  The forest had at one time butted right up against the house, or so Hugh Watson had always remembered from when he’d been a boy, but now it was pushed back some half a mile as the trees at the edges were cut down to provide timber for houses and carts and fireplaces. 

 

But this view of the Manor House was not so different from the view John had always had from the ground.  He wasn’t sure what Sherlock expected him to see.

 

“Not the _house_ , John,” said Sherlock. “What do you see around it?”

 

“Grass.  Fields.  The road to the village,” said John, a bit confused, and then he frowned.  “Wait…there’s another road, behind the house.”

 

Sherlock nodded vigorously and leaned closer to John.  “Yes, exactly.  Another road, and it goes along the forest some ten miles before it turns out again through the fields….”

 

John frowned and tried to follow it.  There were points where the road disappeared as the treeline twisted, but then it would pop out again, and he thought he could just make out where it turned away from the trees altogether, before disappearing into the distance.

 

“But where’s it go?” he wondered.

 

Sherlock sat back, dejected.  “I’m not sure, I’ve only ever gone as far as the turn before I’ve needed to come back.”

 

John looked at Sherlock sharply.  “You’ve been that far?”

 

“I’ve been all through the forest,” said Sherlock carelessly.

 

“ _Alone_?!?”

 

“Victor came with me sometimes.  But only to the forest – he won’t travel the road with me.  I’d like to follow the road all the way,” said Sherlock wistfully.  “You can see it goes straight from the Manor House – it’s not connected to the other road in any way.  And it’s new, and very little traveled.  I don’t think it was cut more than twenty years ago.  I don’t think anyone in the village even knows it’s there, no one else seems to realize there’s a road that leads anywhere else that _doesn’t_ go through the forest.”

 

“You went that far… _alone_?” John’s head swirled with it.  He’d never been so far from the village that he couldn’t at least see _some_ part of it, or at least of his own house.

 

“Not alone.  I had Father’s horse.  But Bits is old, and she’s not fond of going much faster than a trot.”

 

“That’s _not_ the same as having company.”

 

“There’s something very strange about a private road, John,” said Sherlock, clearly ignoring John’s concern.  “Particularly a road that no one knows exists.  And that it makes that turning well past the point that anyone on the ground could see – I want to know why it is there.  Earl Moriarty must use it still, otherwise it would have fallen into complete disrepair, and I can tell you it has not done that.  Where does that road go?  Why did Earl Moriarty construct it?  And what – or who – does he intend to use it?”

 

John looked back and forth between the distant road and Sherlock.  The road might have been mysterious and bright in the distance – but Sherlock, on the rooftop, his eyes wide and blazing with curiosity, his cheeks flushed with excitement…John felt his stomach twist in knots at the sight of it.

 

Though that could have been the fact that he was three stories off the ground.

 

“Leave it, Sherlock,” said John firmly.  “Earl Moriarty has nothing but the best interests of the village at heart.”

 

“Are you so sure of that?” countered Sherlock, challenging.

 

“Of course I am.  He’s never done anything to harm the village, not in my memory.  If he wants a private road for his own use, for whatever reason – then I think he should be allowed to have it.”

 

“But you don’t remember anyone as the earl _but_ him.  You don’t remember—”

 

“Neither do you,” countered John.  “And I’m older than you.  He saved the king’s life, Sherlock.  Everyone knows that, so I know you must know it too, that quick brain of yours.  You’re too clever to have forgotten it.”

 

Sherlock flushed suddenly, his eyes wide with something that might have resembled surprise on anyone else.  On Sherlock, it made him look younger and innocent in a way that made John’s stomach twist a bit.  “You… you think I’m clever?”

 

John wondered how Sherlock didn’t know it.  “You can read and write, can’t you?  You saw a road no one else knows exists.  Of course you’re clever.  Probably more clever than me.”

 

“Easily,” said Sherlock, almost as if he was correcting John, and he flushed again, but didn’t look away.

 

“I don’t mind if you’re more clever than I am,” said John.  “But if we’re to be bonded, you have to trust that sometimes I might know better, and obey when I tell you to leave it alone.”

 

Sherlock pressed his lips together in a thin line; he seemed to shrink inside his clothing, and he wrapped his arms around himself.  “Love, honor, and obey,” he recited.  “That’s what you want from me.”

 

“I won’t ever tell you to do something you don’t want to do.”

 

“You don’t want me to read.”

 

John glanced away at the horizon again.  “I… I don’t mind that you can read.”

 

“Thanks,” said Sherlock scathingly.  “And I’m to be so grateful for my books that I forget everything else I want, too?”

 

John looked back at him.  “What else could you want?”

 

“I want to follow that road all the way to its end,” said Sherlock quickly.  “I want to go to London.  I was born there, you know, though I don’t remember it.  I want to see the king.  I want to see _everything_.  There’s people who build church towers much taller than ours, John, where you have to tip your head back as far as it will go in order to see the top – I want to learn how they do it.  I want to see how far you can see from them, and I want to know why I can’t see all the way to the ends of the earth when I’m sitting up here.  I want to see the ships that go on the sea – great big ships, John, my father saw them once.  They can hold a hundred people easily, and weather the storms if they aren’t capsized, and I want to be right out in the middle of a storm and see how the ships stays afloat.  Did you know there’s more languages spoken on the other side of the sea than we could possibly learn in a lifetime?  Written, too – I want to listen to other people communicate and me not understand a word, and then I want to find out if I can figure out what they’re saying just by listening.  And books, John!  There were piles and piles of books in Egypt, before Alexandria fell into the sea, and I want to see if I can find them.  Can you imagine, piles and piles of books with all the things anyone has ever learned, not just the Bible, but other things too, philosophy and mathematics and anatomy?  I want to read every one of them, learn everything they have to tell me.  Sometimes I can’t sleep for thinking about it.”

 

Sherlock’s eyes were shining; his cheeks were flushed, and his hands could barely hold themselves still on his knees as he looked out into the distance and spoke. 

 

And what he spoke _about_ … God’s Blood, but it sounded wonderful to John, too.  Storms and ships and far-off places smelling of unknown spices.  The warm sun on their backs, their hands clasped together, grinning as they raced along foreign streets….

 

But that wasn’t what Sherlock had said.  Not quite.  John’s heart twisted uncomfortably in his chest.

 

“And what about me?” he asked quietly.  “I can’t leave the village.  My father grows old, and the cough grows worse.  He won’t be able to work more than a few more years.  Elraed doesn’t have the knack for brewing, and Harry is too young for it.”

 

Sherlock rested his chin on his folded arms.  “Your mother could—”

 

“My mother could, yes, but...he’s got the little ones.  He couldn’t make nearly as much ale as is necessary to feed and clothe us all.  It’s got to be me.”

 

“You don’t want to go with me,” said Sherlock.

 

“It’s not a matter of want.  It’s a matter of _can’t_.  I have to stay here, Sherlock.  My family needs me.”

 

Sherlock didn’t say anything.

 

“I don’t want you to be unhappy,” added John, but it seemed like poor comfort, even if it were true.

 

“My mother wanted me to bond with you,” said Sherlock, and the wind made his voice sound very far away.  “My real mother, not my stepmother.  Arranging the betrothal was one of the last things she did before she died.”

 

John wasn’t sure what to say to that.  He remembered the funerals, one after the other as villagers grew ill and dropped where they stood.  They all blended together, even then – he couldn’t remember anymore which had been his siblings’, and which had been the first Goodwife Holmes’. 

 

“You just want me to obey and stay by your side,” said Sherlock into his arms.  He lifted his head and stared at John.  “I can honor you, you know.  That’s easy.  All my life, I’ve been told that alphas deserve my honor and respect, that you deserve no less.  So I’ll honor you.  And I suppose I’ll obey you, too, even if I don’t like it, even if it kills me.  I think it might, if I have to stay in this village forever, churning out children and ale and never finding out what’s on the other end of that road.  But I won’t be able to love you.  No matter what the vows say – I can honor and obey you at the drop of a hat, you’ll never want for an omega who could do better.  But I won’t love you.  Not so easily as the rest.”

 

John wasn’t sure what to say to that, exactly.  He thought briefly of his mother, and the fond way he looked at his children – and the different way he looked at Hugh Watson.  That was something else entirely, something very different from what he felt for his children.  Something much stranger and infinitely more complicated.

 

John knew his mother loved his children, from John on down to Peter, even the three he didn’t have any longer.  _That_ was love, he could feel it as plainly as the sun on his skin.  But what Wil Watson felt for his bonded mate…it couldn’t be love, could it?  Not when it was so much more complex than could be explained?  Wil was fond of Hugh, of that John was certain.  And he was equally certain that over time, he’d be just as fond of Sherlock – in a way, he thought he already was becoming so.  Already he was more comfortable sitting on the thatch, with Sherlock beside him, and less afraid of the wind knocking either of them down. 

 

Maybe, one day, if the wind kept blowing only softly, Sherlock would be fond of him, too.

 

“All right,” he heard himself say.  “No love, then.  I won’t ask that of you.”

 

Sherlock stared at him for a moment, and then nodded.  “Good.”  His voice sounded a bit strangled, and a bit sad as well.  “Thank you,” he added.  “For my books.”

 

“Of course,” said John.

 

*

 

The cart rumbled to a stop on the far side of the village from the Holmes house. “Here we are,” said Hugh Watson, and the passengers all tumbled out, while Hugh reached back to help Wil down from where he’d been perched next to his bonded mate.  John swung Harry and Cecily down, where they held hands tightly and giggled to each other.  Vicky held Peter, who kicked his feet and laughed and struggled to get down and walk.  Wil fussed over the flowers in the girls’ hair, while Hugh and Elraed led the horses into the Murrays’ stable, where they would be able to rest until it was time for the family – minus John – to go home.

 

John would stay in the Holmes house that night with his newly bonded mate, and then they would return to the Watson homestead together in the morning.  _Together_ – bonded, a complete whole, exhausted and elated and knowledgeable in ways that John knew he didn’t quite understand yet, but was implied by the ways he saw Hugh look at Wil, when Wil’s heat came on. 

 

John hadn’t had a frenzy yet – not a real one, anyway.  He’d felt the rush of blood, the urge to overpower and take and _consume_ , to claim and mark – but though it had taken John by surprise and made his fingers clumsy and his thoughts slow, his father had scoffed and called the frenzy a feeble one, and just sent John to bed with a wet cloth and an admonition not to appear until the following day.

 

It had felt strong enough to John.  It was over the next day, though, and while he felt somewhat embarrassed (not to mention a bit chafed), John knew well enough that a real frenzy would last much longer.

 

The frenzy, even an abbreviated one spent by himself, was hot and hungry and John had suffered through most of it thinking how inadequate his hand had been.  With Sherlock – especially a Sherlock in heat, a Sherlock warm and wanton and begging for his touch… John tried hard not to think about it; already his blood felt hotter, just from the idea that somewhere, Sherlock was warm and ready and waiting, especially for _him_. 

 

Wil finished fussing over the girls, and stepped in front of his eldest son.  He smiled and rested a hand on John’s shoulder. 

 

“My boy,” he said, in a way that might have been pride from anyone else, but from Wil, was more validation of something Wil didn’t care to forget.  Then he chuckled.  “Not so much a boy now, are you?”

 

“Not after tonight!” crowed Vicky from behind them, and the other siblings hooted with laughter. 

 

John flushed, but Wil only smiled.  “True enough,” he agreed, and patted John’s cheek.  “Be good to him, John.  Remember he is young and afraid, no matter what shows of bravado he puts on for you.”

 

“I don’t think Sherlock’s been afraid of anything in his entire life,” said John, thinking of the climb to the rooftop, and the boasts of the forest.  Wil chuckled.

 

“Perhaps not before today, but I assure you, he is fearful enough now.  It is a terrible thing, to promise yourself so completely to a relative stranger.  To be so close to becoming your own person, and so abruptly and staunchly reminded that you are not.”

 

John squinted at his mother, catching the odd note in his voice.  “Is…is that what you felt like?  Before you bonded with Da?”

 

The corners of Wil’s mouth turned up slightly; ruefully, John thought.  “I dare say the children will be jealous, when they see how gently I treat him.  But never you mind that, John.  You were always such a kind and careful boy; I hope you remember it.”

 

“All right,” said Hugh Watson, returning from the stables with Simon Murray alongside him.  “Elraed is settling the horses; it’ll just be another minute.”

 

“Simon,” said Wil, pleased, and reached up to kiss his brother on the cheek.

 

“Wil,” replied Simon, and grinned at John.  Simon Murray was a large man, with dark blond hair and a close-cropped beard.  Most of the children in the village stepped carefully around Simon Murray, and John was particularly careful to be on his best behavior when the large man was near.  Not because he was so terrible, but it didn’t do to miss a step when the local sheriff was brothers with your mum. 

 

Now, however, Sheriff Simon Murray’s blue eyes twinkled with merriment, and he clapped a large hand onto John’s shoulder. 

 

“Well met, John.  Nervous?”

 

“No,” said John, lying through his teeth, in hopes that _saying_ it would equate to actually _believing_ it.

 

“Good lad.  I’ve checked, your betrothed hasn’t fled just yet.  Let me know if you’d like me to clap him in irons, though, if you’re worried.”

 

Wil poked Simon with a stern finger.  “Stop scaring him, Simon.  Just because _your_ Ann went to bonding in tears!”

 

“Because she wasn’t bonding with a Watson,” said Hugh smugly, and Simon roared with laughter.

 

“Tell that when Da comes out, I dare you,” he said, wiping his own eyes.

 

Wil’s face brightened.  “He’s coming?  I wasn’t sure, he hasn’t been well….”

 

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Simon assured his brother.

 

The church was in the center of the village.  The procession took a meandering path on its way there in order to pass by nearly every house and hovel, with John and his parents at the head.  As they walked, more and more people joined them, until they had such a parade that the jovial spirit had started to lighten the heavy feeling around John’s shoulders.  The villagers laughed and joked amongst themselves, shouting bits of encouragement to John, as well as a bit of advice.

 

“Hold his legs up when you breach him, Johnny, they’ll kick you right in the face if you’re not careful!”

 

“How would you know, Roger Wilkes, there’s no omega in a thousand miles would touch _your_ pole.”

 

“Lucky Sherlock – you know what they say about Watson poles, don’t you?  Always _up_ for a battle!”

 

A roar of laughter met this comment; John glanced at his father, wondering if his father was scandalized, and was shocked to see the cheeky grin that Hugh Watson was giving to Wil Watson, who flushed pink and determinedly did not look at his mate.

 

Behind them, Elraed had begun walking with a bit more swagger. John saw his cousins nudge each other and roll their eyes at him, but Elraed didn’t appear to notice – or if he did, didn’t seem to care. 

 

“Look at the way John’s walking – suppose Sherlock can feel that pole from here?”

 

John blushed, and concentrated on walking so hard he nearly tripped.  When he caught his balance again, he looked up to see the church just ahead – and on the other side, also walking with a procession of villagers behind them, was the Holmes family, headed by Sherlock, flanked by Godwin and Isobel Holmes, carrying the baby.

 

John almost stopped walking entirely, until Hugh gave him a gentle shove, and then he kept going, blind except for Sherlock in his eyes.

 

Sherlock’s clothes were new: the dark grey leggings tight and smooth.  The lighter kirtle, a pale violet, with a hem that just brushed his thighs, and as Sherlock walked, gave small glimpses of the slim hips and gentle bulge between them.  John felt the back of his neck grow warm, and had to tear his eyes away to Sherlock’s face, framed by the black curls of his hair, topped by the white blossoms that sat so securely on his head. 

 

Sherlock’s cheeks were flushed; the curls around his forehead were already damp with his oncoming heat.  John thought of the leering comments he’d heard behind him, and wondered if Sherlock had heard similar talk, and the rush of protective anger came on so suddenly that it made John want to stop breathing for a moment, while he bashed in the heads of anyone who might have suggested that his desire for Sherlock was anything less than pure.

 

And then they were standing in front of each other, and John wished he could just keep walking, pull Sherlock with him and never stop until they were alone and together and he could listen to Sherlock breathe just for him.  John thought he could feel the heat from Sherlock’s skin, or perhaps that was just the last rays of sunlight at the end of the day.  He could smell him, though – the gentle scent of clean clothes and fresh air and something infinitely richer and delicious, like the first ray of sunlight working its way through dark storm clouds.

 

Sherlock, it seemed, was equally affected, staring at John as if he’d never seen his like.  His eyes were wide and quick, taking in every detail of John’s far more simple clothes, his breath steady but shallow, his chest visibly heaving.

 

And his fingers, twisting together in front of him: nervous.  Sherlock was nervous, John realized, and wondered how Wil Watson could have known.

 

“Well met, Godwin Holmes,” said Hugh Watson warmly, and the men clasped their arms together.

 

“Well met, Hugh Watson,” replied Godwin Holmes, and they grinned happily at each other.  “What a day, eh?  I had my doubts it would come.”

 

Hugh let out a booming laugh.  “I never did. You must have more faith, my friend.”

 

“I shall have faith when I have grandchildren,” said Godwin, and beside him, Sherlock blushed even brighter.  John felt his own cheeks redden.

 

The doors to the church opened with the familiar sound of wood on stone, and John didn’t need to look to know that the priest had stepped outside and down the path to them.  “And who is here to be bonded in the eyes of the Church?” he asked cheerfully, knowing the answer very well but needing to ask for tradition’s sake.

 

“My son,” said Godwin Holmes, and he put his arm around Sherlock and pulled him forward.

 

“And mine,” added Hugh Watson, and led John to stand next to Sherlock.

 

The priest smiled brightly at them both.  “Well, then – my young boys, soon to be men.  Let’s be done with it.”

 

John never remembered much of the bonding vows afterward.  He remembered the flush on Sherlock’s brow; the way his curls pressed damply to his skin.  John could almost feel the heat emanate from Sherlock, and when they grasped each other’s hands, John felt them tremble, just a bit, in his. 

 

Sherlock filled his eyes.  Other things filled the rest of him.  The smell of the blossoms from the flowers around them.  The quiet breathing from the crowd of people watching, and the persistent drone of the priest’s voice.  The warmth of his blood, from his fingers to his toes.  John had attended bondings before, but he’d never really heard the words.  He thought he’d pay attention now, but though he answered the questions, he had no idea what he said.  For all he knew, he’d promised to stand on his head in the center of town every other Tuesday and let Sherlock color all his underclothes red.

 

“John,” said the priest, his voice rich with laughter, and John blinked, tearing his eyes away from Sherlock to look at the priest.  “Go on, my son – it’s time for the scenting.”

 

“Oh,” said John, and the villagers behind them laughed.  John blushed furiously, and turned back to Sherlock, who was trembling, his fingers tight and cold in his.  Sherlock turned his head to the side, baring his long, slim, smoothly white neck.

 

“With thy scents, thee shall bind to each other,” said the priest, and somewhere, John thought he heard his mother sniffling to himself.  “With thy breath, thee shall respond only to each other.  Each other for the other, one and the same.”

 

John wasn’t even sure he knew how to _breathe_ , much less scent Sherlock.  He leaned forward, and gently rested the tip of his nose on Sherlock’s neck.  He could smell the parchment-paper scent of him, the dry, somewhat sour scent of the ink his father used.  And under that, the fresh clean scent of mint and soap, of skin and sweat, and something much, much sweeter and more delicate.  John rested his nose against Sherlock’s neck, gently pressed his lips to the skin, and felt Sherlock’s pulse through his mouth.  He could almost taste Sherlock’s heartbeat, and he dragged his nose and lips upwards to Sherlock’s ear.

 

Dimly, he remembered the words he was meant to say.  “You and no other,” he whispered to Sherlock, and felt Sherlock shiver before he ran his mouth and nose back down again to where Sherlock’s shoulder and neck met.

 

Sherlock curled his head down, and pressed his own lips to John’s neck in exchange, a show of acceptance and acquiescence. There was a happy sort of sigh from the villagers – the deed was done.  Or would be: the scenting would be enough to bring on Sherlock’s estrus, already coming to fruition.  Their scents would bind them together, and protect Sherlock from succumbing completely to his estrus for the next few hours, which would give him enough time to enjoy the festivities before they were put to bed for their actual bonding.

 

But first, there were other things that needed doing.

 

“I now pronounce you alpha and omega,” said the priest, and the round of applause from the village woke John up from the strange pheromone-induced haze of scenting Sherlock.  He lifted his head, just enough to rest his forehead against his new mate’s, and gave him a grin that was more relieved than it was happy.

 

“All right?” he asked quietly, while the villagers continued to laugh and applaud.

 

Sherlock’s cheeks were blazing.  “Yes.”

 

“Let us go in to pray,” continued the priest, and led them inside the church for mass.

 

*

John walked to the bonding party hand-in-hand with Sherlock.  It wasn’t a far walk – only to the Holmes house – but he remembered every step of it, the way Sherlock’s hand curled softly around his.  The warmth of it, the dryness of his skin.  They hadn’t been at the party for longer than a few minutes when Sherlock had disappeared into the mess of omegas, a giggly group that seemed intent on giving Sherlock helpful advice.  Sherlock had thrown John a despairing look, and John had grinned, but been pulled away himself to drink to his new bond.

 

“To John,” said Elraed, holding his mug of ale high in the air.  “May your sword be always ready and his sheath willing to take it.”

 

“To John!” roared the rest of the alphas, and John forgot to drink in his shock that Elraed could even compose such a bawdy thing.

 

John had already drunk several mugs of the ale before he managed to slip away from the lot of them, wondering where Sherlock had gone.  Wasn’t there something he and Sherlock were meant to _do_?

 

The party was in full swing.  Watson ale flowed from cup to cup as everyone ate and drank and made merry.  John thought he saw various couples petering out at points, into dark corners or into the trees that came so close to the house, only to appear some time later with silly grins on their faces.

 

The boards were laid out with roasts and potatoes, carrots and onions, savoury and sweet pies of mutton and apple, flavored with chestnuts and cinnamon.  There were eggs and pickles and dozens of small cakes, and the children scampered underfoot, their mouths caked with sugar, and no one seemed to bother themselves very much about bedtimes. 

 

But John couldn’t find Sherlock anywhere.  He ducked into the yard, where the children were chasing the lightning bugs.  He looked in the kitchens, where half the omegas of the village promptly chased him out, threatening his as-of-yet untested manhood.  He even looked in the parlour, and found it empty and quiet.

 

His mother caught him as he was about to stand atop a table and begin to shout for Sherlock.  “Look along treeline, I think,” said Wil, a soft smile on his face.  John nodded, and went.

 

John spotted Sherlock almost immediately; it was the white flowers in his hair that shone in the setting sun.

 

“Are you drunk?” demanded Sherlock as John approached, taking care as he walked along the bumpy path, strewn with fallen branches.

 

“No,” said John carefully, and he sat next to Sherlock.  “I don’t think so.  They tried, though.”

 

Sherlock was quiet, his hands rubbing and pulling at the fabric of his kirtle.  “They wouldn’t let me have a single drop.”

 

John wasn’t sure what to say to that.  Why couldn’t Sherlock have ale, if he wanted?

 

“It…it does something to estrus,” said Sherlock, his voice stilted and harsh and strange.  “Interrupts the flow.  I don’t understand it.”

 

“I expect you will, soon enough,” said John.

 

“Yes.”  Sherlock took a breath, and turned to him.  “You don’t remember any of it.”

 

“Of what?”

 

“The bonding.  On the church steps – you don’t remember a single word.  Don’t deny it.  I could tell you weren’t listening.”

 

“I remember _some_ of it,” protested John, but Sherlock snorted, clearly not believing him.  John opened his mouth to protest again, and felt the blood rush to his face.  “I…oh, sweet Jesu, what did I say?”

 

“Nothing entirely out of the ordinary,” said Sherlock thoughtfully.  “You did mention something about a goat, though.”

 

John made a sort of sound deep in his throat.  It could have been described as a bleat, but that might have been association.  And then he saw Sherlock trying to hide the grin.

 

“You arse,” said John wonderingly.  “You utter _pillock_.”

 

“You don’t remember, though.”

 

“I was looking at _you_ , if you must know,” said John.  “You…I wish you could see yourself, the way you looked on the church steps.  Flowers in your hair, and that purple…I don’t know how anyone could pay attention to anything the priest said.  All I remember about any of it is you.”

 

Sherlock bowed his head, unable to look up for a moment.  “I…I think I know.  I saw how I looked in the way you looked at me.”

 

“You see, then,” said John.

 

Sherlock turned on the ground to face John.  “It doesn’t mean anything,” he insisted.  “If you can’t remember what you said – what good was saying it?”

 

“All right then,” said John, and he took Sherlock’s hands in his.  “I’ll say it again.  I promise to care for and comfort and honor you, all the days of my life, forsaking all others.  Good times, bad times, sickness and health, no matter what, I promise to be your protector and guide.”

 

Sherlock bit his lips together, blinking hard.  “You forgot about keeping me.”

 

“That too,” said John.

 

“I…”  Sherlock took a breath.  “I don’t think I’ll be very good at this.  The whole…bonding.  Business.”

 

John frowned.  “My mother said he’d help.”

 

Sherlock shuddered.  “Not that part.  The…other part.  The you-and-me part.  The…the tonight part.”

 

“Oh,” said John, and he reached over to cup Sherlock’s cheek and lift his face up.  “You’re wrong, you know.”

 

“I’m never wrong.”

 

“You are, though.  I remember the important part.”  John leaned in to Sherlock’s ear, and whispered.  “You and no other.”

 

He felt Sherlock’s head bow forward, until Sherlock’s curls brushed against John’s cheek.  He thought he could feel Sherlock’s checks bulge just a bit, as if he was smiling.  “You and no other,” he agreed softly, as if he were making his own vow, and John’s stomach clenched as he smelled Sherlock’s soft scents again.

 

“I’ll take care of you.  I’ll see you through.  I promise.”

 

Sherlock laughed a little.  “You don’t know what you’re doing, either.”

 

“Well,” said John, and he pulled back to look at Sherlock’s face, pleased to see the smile there. “I’ve had a great deal of terrible advice.  If I ignore all of it, we’ll find our way well enough.”

 

Sherlock laughed even louder then.

 

“Trust me,” said John firmly, and when he felt Sherlock’s hand tighten in his, somehow knew it meant that Sherlock did.  “I’ll see us through to the other side.  I promise.”

 

The way John remembered it, there was just enough time to see the smile grow across Sherlock’s face – the first real smile that John had ever seen him make.  Enough time to see the light shine in Sherlock’s eyes, the first inkling that maybe everything _would_ be all right – that John’s words were actually based in his own knowledge and trust in himself to find them safe passage, and not just his own pride and attempts to ignore the misgivings he had about his bonding.

 

In reality, it all happened so quickly, that looking back with a critical and detached eye, John supposed there hadn’t been enough time for anything so hopeful.  The carriage came straight down the road, a loud clattering sound of horses and armor and men, and the head of the war-like procession, Earl Moriarty, his eyes scanning the grounds even before he slid elegantly off his steed.

 

“Sherlock Holmes,” he called out, and somewhere, the nighttime noises died away.  People stopped talking and laughing, the lute and the lyre faded as well as the crickets in the forest behind them. 

 

From the crowd, Godwin Holmes stepped out.  “My lord!” he exclaimed, throwing his arms wide.  “Well met, my lord, your presence is an honor indeed.  Please, come in and sit and let us bring you something to drink.”

 

“Holmes,” said Earl Moriarty, and he smiled.  His lips snaked out over his teeth.  “I am here to claim _jus primae noctis_.  All I require is your son, and we shall be on our way.”

 

Everything went silent and still.  For a moment, not even John’s heart beat in his chest.  He stared at Earl Moriarty and wondered when he would wake up.

 

Earl Moriarty, on the other hand, looked around the yard with that peculiar, self-satisfied smile, as though completely oblivious to the stunned villagers who looked back at him. 

 

“Oh, come now,” he said, jovial and piercing all at once.  “I know I’ve never claimed the right in the village proper before, but this is _such_ a special occasion, is it not?  I couldn’t let it pass without a blessing from my house.”

 

“ _Blessing_!” blurted out Godwin, his face already turning shades of red and purple.  His wife grasped his arm; John could see the knuckles of her hand go white with the effort to hold him back. 

 

“I don’t wish to disturb the festivities, you are all welcome to remain and make merry until daybreak while I undertake the difficult work of breaking young Sherlock in.  I quite envy you all, truly I do.  I shall get no sleep tonight.”

 

And the earl _smiled_ at Sherlock – in daylight, it might have been a kind smile.  By the firelight, however, it was leering and dark with promise. 

 

Something in John’s chest twisted.  His blood began to race; his heart began to pound, his head began to spin.  The only part of him that was still was his hand, gripping Sherlock’s fingers so tightly that he thought he could feel Sherlock’s blood whimpering in response.

 

Light-headed, he stood, edging out in front of Sherlock. 

 

 _Territorial_ , thought John suddenly.  That was what he was feeling – the normal protective instinct of an alpha when an omega mate was threatened.  But…Sherlock wasn’t his mate, not yet.  They’d only scented each other, and that wasn’t usually something that would provoke an alpha to fight off a would-be challenger. 

 

Except…

 

“You won’t take him,” said John, and to his eternal dismay (and what would surely be repeated in every nightmare he’d have for the rest of his life), his voice cracked and squeaked in a way it hadn’t in six years.  He felt Sherlock’s fingers tense around his, a soft little flutter, and it gave him heart while Moriarty smirked in response, and he glanced around the room.

 

“Ah,” said Moriarty, and he turned to the sheriff, where he stood near the house.  “My good Sheriff Murray.  You have a reasonable understanding of the law – do you stand in the way of my claim?”

 

Simon Murray was standing near the house, framed by the light from within. Elraed stood by his shoulder, so much smaller that for a moment, John didn’t see him at all.

 

And then Elraed was all John _could_ see – the way his younger brother crossed his arms over his chest, the way he clenched his jaw, the way he didn’t so much as glance at their uncle the sheriff – and for a moment, John was certain of what Simon would say.  _No, this is not your right, these are good people and you cannot besmirch them in this way_. 

 

The silence grew longer, as Simon didn’t answer, but Moriarty didn’t seem the least bit impatient for it.  He simply kept his focus on the sheriff, his smile never wavering.  John finally had to look at his uncle.  Simon’s mouth dropped open for a moment, and then he closed it with a snap, swallowing hard. 

 

“No, my lord,” said Simon finally.  “You have the right.”

 

Behind Simon, Elraed disappeared into the shadows – but John’s heart sank to his feet, and he felt Sherlock squeeze his hand.

 

“Of course I do,” said the earl, smoothly, and turned back to John.  “You see!  Stand down now, boy.  I’m doing you a favor.  These virgins cry and whine so much the first time, you know.  It’s very unpleasant, and I’m taking on that burden for you.”

 

“ _No_ ,” gasped John, and stepped closer to Sherlock, as if to protect him.

 

“John,” said Simon Murray.

 

“No!” shouted John.  His blood was racing through his veins; he could hear a roaring in his ears.  He felt almost dizzy with it, and somehow, in all of this, Moriarty leaned in, so close that John could almost smell the grease in his slicked-back hair, and some kind of perfume so cloying that it made John choke.  John had never been this close to Earl Moriarty before, had never particularly _wanted_ to be this close. 

 

He whispered in John’s ear, though loud enough for Sherlock to hear him, if not the rest of the yard.  “By the time I return him in the morning, he’ll be so nice and wet and _loose_ , you’ll be thanking me for my generosity of spirit.”

 

Sherlock tugged on John’s hand from where he was still on the ground.  “John, sit down, sit down, _please_.”

 

But John stood firm.  “We aren’t peasants.  You have no right.”

 

“I have every right,” hissed Earl Moriarty.  “I have the right of lordship and the right of my position.  I paid for the food on the table and the flowers in his hair.  I dare say I know the little whelp better than you do.

 

“I won’t _bond_ with him, if that’s what worries you.  I’ll return him with his neck intact in the morning. He’ll be quite unharmed.  Well…apart from _one_ small modification.” 

 

Earl Moriarty licked his lips then, and for some reason, that movement sent John over the edge.  He let go of Sherlock’s hand and moved with single focus – to put his fist straight through the lordship’s cheek.

 

The lance in his left shoulder didn’t even stop him at first – not until the tip pierced his clothing with a pop, and the blood soaked his tunic.  Somewhere in the crowd, a woman screamed.  Sherlock’s stepmother?  John’s sister?  He wasn’t sure; his head swam with a fog, and he stared blankly at Earl Moriarty, his hand raised, his fingers still poised after the snap that had called his man into action.

 

Sir Sebastian Moran, thought John, staring at the man at the other end of the lance.  His face was impassive and cool, as if he were spearing a rabbit and not a boy.  The knight wasn’t even _looking_ at him – he was staring off somewhere above John’s head, his face so hard and solid that he seemed like more of a rock than a man.

 

This was the man Elraed admired, talked about, wanted to be one day?  Somewhere in the crowd, thought John, Elraed was about to watch his brother be killed by his hero.  Assuming he had the stomach for it at all.

 

“Don’t you worry,” whispered Earl Moriarty so smoothly to John.  “I’ll take good care of him.  I’ll see him through.”

 

The words were too similar, and whatever rage John had been keeping bottled in broke.  He pushed forward, ignoring the blossoming pain in his shoulder as the lance slid past the muscle and hit the bone—

 

And then there was a shout from behind him.  “I’ll go!  Stop it.  Just…don’t hurt him anymore.  I’ll _go_ with you, all right?  Lord James, I’ll _go_.”

 

“Stop,” said Earl Moriarty, and then the lance was ripped out of John’s shoulder, far more painfully than it had been going in.  John screamed out and reached up for the wound, ignoring the dizzy wave that swept over him and nearly pushed him to the ground.

 

Well, thought John.  That would make death a bit neater, if Sir Sebastian could spear him on the ground, at least.  Did it still count as _jus primae noctis_ if the groom died within a few hours of the ceremony? 

 

No, he _was_ on the ground.  Lowered there, John thought, by hands that were strong and gentle, that still held him down, and cradled his head carefully. 

 

Sherlock, who looked as scared and worried as John had ever seen him, but leaned in close, as if trying to breathe in John to the very last moment.  Already John could see Moriarty’s guards advancing behind him, ready to drag him away.

 

“What are you _doing_?” said John, gritting his teeth together.  “You _idiot_.”

 

“It’s all right,” said Sherlock to him, low, and John struggled to sit up.  His face was nearly as pale as the flowers.  “I’ll go, and then I’ll be back, and it will all be well.  He said he won’t bond me.”

 

“And you _trust_ him?”

 

Sherlock didn’t meet his eyes.  “It’s better this way.  They said it would hurt – at least this way, I won’t associate the pain with you.”

 

“Sherlock—”

 

“Bored now,” said Earl Moriarty, and then the guards were on them, pulling Sherlock up by the shoulders to carry him away.  Sherlock didn’t struggle; he looked back at John, his chest heaving, as he was carried back to the litter.  “Holmes, where shall I return your son?  Oh, right, I’m sorry, it’s not your say any longer, is it?  I should ask his alpha.  Boy – what _is_ your name, I forget?”

 

John glared up at Moriarty. The blood ran sluggishly through his fingers.  “Watson.”

 

“I’ll return your omega in the morning.  Near to seven.  Or eight.  Or perhaps nine, if I quite like him.”

 

“Enough!” said Simon Murray angrily.  It was not quite a roar, but it was his uncle acting as the sheriff and no mistake.  “You’ve made your claim, my lord.  Take him and go.”

 

For a moment, John thought he saw a flash of distaste across the earl’s face, as if he looked at the sheriff and saw only a slug fit for the bonfire. 

 

And then the flash was gone, and Earl Moriarty flourished his cloak and bowed low, without once taking his eyes away from John, or letting the smirk slide from his lips.

 

“In the morning, then,” he said, a promise, and he was gone, and Sherlock with him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Brief Haitus Warning:** There will not be an update next week. Due to unexpected but awesome RL reasons, we'll be traveling and I'm not sure of how much time I'll have to post the next chapter. Posting will resume October 7.
> 
> **Trigger Warning:** We start to get into the dub-con in this chapter. Again - if you need more information about the nature of what happens between Sherlock and Moriarty, _please please please_ do not hesitate to contact me, and I can help you decide whether or not you want to continue reading. Above all: keep yourselves safe!

John wasn’t sure what happened after Sherlock was bundled into Earl Moriarty’s litter and carted away without further ado.  All he could remember, when he closed his eyes, was the expression on Sherlock’s face, the way his mouth had been moving as if he’d been saying something that John could not hear.  The wide-eyed look directly at John: the world consisted of just the two of them and the force pulling Sherlock away as easily as if Sherlock had actually fallen from the rooftop the month before.

 

He kept his eyes closed.  Someone helped him to his feet; someone helped him into the house and onto a chair.  He could hear the villagers’ voices tumble over themselves, the scraping of furniture as it was dragged across the floor.  Voices – some more distinct than others – arguing and soothing and whispering in turns. 

 

_The meadow girl – you know, the one who lives by the river – he claimed her six months ago.  Said it was over before she knew he’d begun._

_What did Godwin Holmes expect, taking his omega son to the Manor House every day?  The earl just wants a last taste of his plaything._

 

_The Watsons think they’re better, for having married into the sheriff’s family – they’re no better than the rest of us._

 

John opened his eyes wide, the blood surging in his veins again – and found himself staring right at Sherlock, aged forty years; the lines deepened, darkened, the chin filled with impossible stubble.  His eyes were downcast, his shoulders slumped as if in shame. 

 

John’s breath caught in his throat.

 

And then a wave of pain shot through John’s arm, as Godwin Holmes’s cold fingers prodded John’s bruised skin.  The world snapped back into focus, and John clenched his teeth together.  Godwin, not Sherlock.  Sherlock would never look old in the same way as Godwin Holmes.  For one, as an omega, he’d never have the stubble that graced his father’s chin.    

 

Sherlock would age, but it would take forty years, not a single night.  Over the years, he would surely lose the boyish slimness, gain a bit of a paunch on his stomach, extra weight on his hips.  He’d have back problems and painful arches, varicose veins and his hands that were rough with work. He’d forget the events of their bonding night, in the birth of children and the daily grind of work.  The memory would fade.  It would.  It would.

 

John closed his eyes again, and saw Sherlock’s unblinking eyes, his moving mouth, the words he couldn’t hear – a message? 

 

“A bad business,” said Michael Stamford, and there was a clatter of something on the nearby table.  The “bad business” could have been John’s shoulder or the entire evening; John didn’t know and didn’t care, and on his shoulder, Godwin’s fingers went still, and then continued to probe the wound without the hint of a tremble.

 

“The wound is not so deep,” said Godwin, and his voice was just as steady as his fingers.

 

“No, of course not,” said Michael, hastily.  “The lord hasn’t claimed _jus primae noctis_ in… oh, at least six months now.   That was a girl, though.  The farmers, out to the west.  He did it right there, I’m told.  All over in a heartbeat.”

 

John thought briefly – of the earl taking Sherlock there, behind the house, and then heading off back to his Manor House.  Would it have been easier to bear, if it’d been over in a heartbeat?  If the earl had swaggered out of the house, Sherlock stumbling behind – would it have been easier, if John could have held Sherlock then, the younger boy still shaking and needful, and— 

 

John was almost sick, thinking of it, but whether it was the thought of Sherlock, used by someone else against his will, or the idea that John would have to complete the task someone else had begun, he didn’t know.

 

Godwin’s voice was calm, if not entirely even.  “I remember.  Willow bark tea, I think.”

 

“Already heating the water,” promised Stamford, and John gritted his teeth and opened his eyes again.  “I can clean him up, if you’d—”

 

“No,” said Godwin sharply, and then, as if he was shocked by his own harshness, tempered his voice a bit.  “No, I should be the one to do this.”

 

“Your wife and son—”

 

“My wife does not need me at present, and my _son_ —”  Godwin’s mouth twisted.  “My _son_ is safe, or as safe as can be expected.”

 

John felt his insides cracking.

 

The fire on the far side of the room snapped; John felt Godwin’s hands leave his skin for a moment.  Despite how cold they’d been, the room felt strangely colder for the loss.

 

“I meant the babe,” said Stamford gently.  “Friend, let me help.  You have had a shock; let me bandage John for you.  It should not be your responsibility.”

 

Godwin did not stop, but he tempered his voice a bit.  “What has happened to John is entirely my responsibility.”

 

There was a slight pause, and then Stamford spoke again, quietly and comfortingly.  “I’ll just make the tea.”

 

Stamford left the room, and it was as if he took Godwin’s spirit with him.  The man slumped for a moment, his head bowed, his breathing slight – for a moment, John wondered if he’d fallen asleep, or into some kind of meditative trance.

 

And then he reached for his tools on the table.  John held his breath, and steeled himself for the needle to pierce his skin.

 

“The wound is not particularly deep,” said Godwin, without meeting John’s eyes.  In fact, he seemed to be focused solely on the needle he held in the candle’s flame, and the wound on John’s shoulder.  “You will regain your strength and full use of your arm in time, though I would be careful for the present.”

 

And then Godwin pulled the needle from the flame, and set to work.

 

The searing, sharp heat of the needle was terrible – but it was over quickly enough.  The needle reminded John of the sting of the blade, sliding smoothly through his shoulder, the scrape of it against his bone.  It had felt as if he was being neatly sliced in two, clean and quick, lightning fire.

 

The tug of the thread was infinitely worse.  The thread was rough; he could feel the thickness of the uneven weave as it ran through his skin.  But unlike the sharp pain of the sword, John felt only a powerful ache, as if his entire body were being pressed under a stone.  The thread moved slowly, John’s skin puckering and vibrating as it went.  John measured it out in the seconds in his head, the never-ending sensation of the thread running through him just as Sherlock drew further and further away, heading toward a definite destination that John didn’t want to remember.

 

The separation shouldn’t have mattered; not yet.  So Moriarty would have Sherlock.  It was only for one night.  It happened, sometimes.  Stolen nights spent in other arms happened without _jus primae noctis_ ; hormones were tricky things, oncoming heats and celebrations and dark corners and as much as the church wanted to condemn it, couplings occurred without the sanctity of bondings and scenting and contracts. 

 

And there were other omegas in the village that night, if John had wanted to spend his alpha pride somewhere else, so that he and Sherlock met again on equal footing.  Just as they had begun.  With one small… alteration.

 

Even thinking Moriarty’s words, however, was enough to turn John’s stomach.  The thread stopped in his shoulder; John felt the pressure of the cloth against the wound again, as Godwin wiped away the blood.

 

“Nearly done,” he said, and John clenched his teeth together tightly.  His entire shoulder shook, every stitch painful and never-ending as Godwin tied the wound together.  One, two, three – and it was done.  Godwin reached for a clean bandage, and pressed it against the stitches.

 

“Hold this for me,” he instructed John, and John craned his neck to look at his shoulder.  The wound looked neat enough, John supposed, though the skin was bruised and sore.  The blood had stopped seeping at least; John could feel the tug of the clot as the blood dried. 

 

There were three stitches holding the wound together.  The skin around them was red; John thought it felt warmer, too.

 

It didn’t appear to be so large, now that it was neatly put back together.  Such a small scratch, really – strange to think it’d been so painful not so long before.

 

John watched as Godwin began to wrap up his shoulder, winding the long strip of fabric around his shoulder and chest to hold his arm in place.  Godwin had eyes only for John’s shoulder and the fabric upon it. 

 

“You’ll stay here the night.  Moriarty will bring Sherlock back here in the morning; you should be here to receive him.  He’ll want to see you.”

 

John stared at Godwin.  “Why?”

 

Godwin paused, but only briefly, before he continued, his hands shaking.  His voice was thick, as if he struggled to speak.  “You think I don’t know my own son?”

 

“No – I mean – why you?  You could have let Stamford sew me up.  He bandages the sheep and pigs well enough.”

 

“Perhaps you are worth more than a sheep or a pig,” said Godwin quietly, and continued to work.  “It is my responsibility.”

 

“You’re the earl’s personal physician, not mine,” retorted John.  “Or is patching up his victims part of your duties as well?”

 

“When it is my fault they were damaged – then yes,” said Godwin, a bit harshly, and then he went still, as if shocked by his own outburst.  He shook his head, and continued wrapping John’s shoulder, his voice quieter again.  “I sent my eldest son away in order that he not fall under Moriarty’s power.  However, it seems that in doing so, I inadvertently gave him the other.  The only thing I can do now is to ensure that my son’s intended mate is well enough to receive him when he comes home.”

 

John closed his eyes, and almost regretted it the moment he did. The only image in his head was Sherlock, pulled back by Moriarty’s guardsmen, his eyes focused solely on John, the fear evident by the way he strained toward John, the way he held his jaw, the way he did not fight them.

 

Further and further away, and John’s blood surged hot in his veins, his skin itched and twitched, and he wanted to jump off his chair and shove Godwin Holmes away, race straight out the door to the Manor House.  Pound on the front door and sit there until morning, so as not to let Sherlock remain alone with the bloody bastard earl a moment longer than absolutely necessary.

 

John opened his eyes again.  “Mycroft.  Sherlock’s older brother.  You sent him away?”

 

“Be still,” said Godwin.

 

“But – Sherlock said Mycroft is an alpha.  The earl wouldn’t want to bed him—”

 

“Some games have very little to do with bedding, boy,” snapped Godwin.  “Now, _hold still_ , or your arm will be more of a mess than it was when I began.”

 

John fell quiet, thinking.  It was difficult work, what with the pain in his shoulder, and the way his head felt so thick that he couldn’t quite form coherent words.  “My uncle was right.”

 

“About what?”

 

“You couldn’t have stopped it.  He’s the _earl_.  He has the right.”

 

And then Godwin laughed; a wry, bitter laugh, the sort of laugh that made the hair on John’s neck stand on end.  “Is that what you think?”

 

John opened his mouth – because of _course_ Godwin could not have stopped Sherlock being claimed.  He might have been the earl’s personal physician, he might have been able to send Mycroft away before the earl could do whatever he had intended to do to him – but that didn’t mean the earl couldn’t have squashed him like a bug for defiance.  Before John could say a word, the door opened on the far side of the room, and Hugh Watson entered the house, followed closely by Michael Stamford, carrying the willow bark tea.

 

Hugh Watson was a simple man; he wore his heart on his sleeve.  When he was happy, the entire house knew it and reveled in it.  John had seen his father at his most jovial, just a few hours before.  He’d seen his father shed tears of sorrow when the bloody flux took his two youngest children seven years before; and John had seen Hugh shed additional tears of joy when Cecily and Peter had been born to replace them.  He’d seen him exhausted at the end of a difficult harvest season, and the quiet, solemn contemplation of a man at prayer.

 

But John hadn’t seen his father quite like this before; defeated and broken, and completely resigned to his fate.

 

John wondered if he looked the same, just then.

 

“Simon is sending the last of the guests away,” he said wearily, and collapsed on a chair on the opposite side of the table.  “Most of them went peacefully enough.”

 

“There’s those who want the last word, as always,” agreed Stamford, and he set the tea down on the table near to John. 

 

“Gossip,” scoffed Godwin.  “They’ll be saying we courted the earl’s pleasure, of course.  That we’ve been in bed with him, we should have expected our children to be in bed _for_ him.  Fools, the lot of them.”

 

“Drink the tea,” Stamford told John, pushing the cup into his free hand.  John drank; it was bitter and almost too hot to swallow, but drinking it seemed to clear the fog around his head.

 

“We’ve been lucky,” said Hugh shortly.  “Our luck was always going to run out someday.”  He looked up at John.  “What did you think you were about, boy?  You shouldn’t have fought him.”

 

John looked up sharply.  “What do you mean?”

 

“When the earl came for Sherlock – you should have let him go.”

 

“Sherlock’s _mine_!” protested John.

 

“Not until you’ve bonded him, he isn’t,” said Hugh shortly.  “God’s Blood, John – he could have _killed_ you for resisting him.  And then where would Sherlock be?  Claimed and widowed without a bond?  He’d have never found a mate then.  You should have let the earl take his due.”

 

“Due?  _Due_?  It’s fine for the peasants to pay their due, Da – but we’re not peasants!  We’re _better_ than them, we’re just as good as the earl—”

 

Hugh slammed his hand down on the table.  “Are you even listening to yourself?  We aren’t noble.  We barely own the land we work, boy.  My grandparents were peasants, and their grandparents before them, and the reason you sit where you are today is because they held their heads down and did as their lords bade them.  If you want to live to see your grandchildren, then you’ll follow their example.”

 

The door on the far side of the room opened.  “Da,” said Elraed, “Mum doesn’t look well, and he says the children need to go home.”

 

John sucked in a breath.  “What about you, Da?  Would you have just turned the other way and let him take Mum on your bonding day?”

 

Hugh stood, leaning hard on the table.  John swallowed, watching his father slowly unfold before him, his face in the shadows, and for a long moment, John regretted asking the question at all – not just because of the change it wrought in his father, but the idea that Hugh might actually answer a question that John didn’t even want to consider.

 

“You can stay here, or you can come with us,” said Hugh, and his voice was low and thick. 

 

“He can stay here,” said Godwin.  “There’s room.”

 

“You didn’t answer!” blurted out Elraed.

 

“Elraed,” said Hugh, his voice a caution.

 

“Well, did you?” cried Elraed, his voice going higher and higher with every word.  “You’re telling John to roll over, but did you roll over?  Did you let him have Mum?  Is that why there’s so much time between John and Vicky – did it take Mum that long to forgive you being a coward?”

 

The slap on Elraed’s cheek echoed in the little room.  But only Elraed seemed to have any reaction to it at all.  His mouth dropped open in shock; his hand flew to the bruised cheek as he stared at his father, who still could not meet their eyes.

 

Godwin continued his ministrations on John’s shoulder.  Stamford, on the far side of the room, continued to stoke the fire.

 

“John.  We’ll be waiting for you and your mate in the morning,” said Hugh, without looking at Elraed.  “Sleep won’t come easy tonight.  But there’s ale to see you through.”

 

_I’ll see you through_ , John had promised.  _I’ll see him through_ , Earl Moriarty had said.

 

John sucked in a breath as every muscle in his body tensed.

 

“Da—” began John, but wasn’t sure how to continue.

 

“We’ll talk tomorrow,” said Hugh, and left the room without another word.

 

Elraed turned as if to follow – and then didn’t, instead slumped down the wall, holding his cheek, his chest heaving up and down as if he couldn’t quite catch his breath.

 

“Stamford,” said Godwin Holmes, as he began to tie off the sutures on John’s shoulder.  “I think that is all.  Thank you.”

 

“Of course,” said Stamford.  “I’ll bring more tea in the morning.”

 

“Yes, do.”

 

With a last flick at the fire, Stamford left the three of them alone. 

 

John closed his eyes.  The tea was beginning to work, clearing the fog from his head, making his thoughts run a bit more smoothly.  The pain was lessened as well; he could feel the tug of the thread holding his skin together, and the general ache of his muscles, bruised and battered – but not the sharp pain of it.  He breathed in deeply, and felt his lungs fill to bursting.

 

And then he heard it – the sound of the cart being pulled away, the large wooden wheels scraping against the rocks and dirt of the road, carrying his family back home.  It ought to have been a joyful, laughing trip, as they teased and rolled and giggled, the small ones asleep, sticky with honey and sugar.  Wil would have been crying tears of joy.  Instead, Wil wore a brave mask to hide his own feelings, and John’s siblings cried tears of confusion and fear. 

 

“There’s room for both of you,” said Godwin, as the sound faded.  “You and Elraed both.”

 

Of course there was room – he and Sherlock were meant to stay there that night anyway.  The omegas would have taken Sherlock, and undressed him, brushed his hair, put him to bed.  The alphas would have jostled John back and forth, shouted bawdy comments and spilled a bit of ale on his shirt.  Sherlock might have blushed when they entered the room to put John to bed next to him.

 

No, not Sherlock.  He would have glared at them all, arms crossed, having endured the fussing of his stepmother and mother-in-law, and assorted other omegas, and he would not put up with the rowdy and nearly drunk alphas.  He would have given them a count of ten and then thrown them all out on their ears and arses, and he’d have been flushed pink with the exertion.

 

_John_ , said Sherlock, as he was dragged away.  _I will…be…._

 

Sherlock would be many things before daylight, and none of them were precisely _John’s_ , and there was the rub. 

 

“I knew the previous earl.”

 

John’s eyes flew open, and he stared at Godwin as he cleared the table away of medical supplies.  “How?  He died long before you came here.”

 

“And here is the only place in which to know someone?” asked Godwin mildly.  “I knew him in London, when I was a boy, and he was a young man, a bit older than you.  Handsome lad, very good with horses, and such a clever shot with a bow and arrow – I’ve never seen the like.”

 

John felt his jaw tense.  “If you say.  He died before I was born.”

 

“Not that much before,” said Elraed from the other side of the room, and John clenched his teeth again.  He’d forgotten his brother was in the room.  “And he couldn’t have been very good with horses; he fell from one, didn’t he?”

 

“Everyone falls from horses,” said Godwin.  “Not everyone hits their head on a rock when they fall.”

 

“John’s never touched a bow and arrow,” continued Elraed.  “But the oxen like him well enough.”

 

“Shut it, Elraed,” growled John.

 

Godwin rose, his arms full of the unused bandages and blood-stained cloths.  “I’ll look on it again in the morning.  Finish your tea; it will help you sleep, but if it begins to bother you, please wake me and I’ll make more.”

 

John nodded without looking away from the fire.

 

“John,” began Godwin, but said nothing more.  John could hear the weariness in his voice now.  “I’ll tell Isobel to light the fire in your room.”

 

“I’d rather sit up,” said John gruffly.

 

“Then it’ll be warm when you’re ready to rest.”  Godwin rested his hand on John’s good shoulder for a moment.  “It will… time will move more slowly for you waiting, than it will for him.  And morning will come soon enough.”

 

John said nothing, and after a moment, Godwin sighed and left the room.  It wasn’t until he was gone that John flexed his muscles in his left shoulder and arm.  The pain flared, instant and severe, and John sucked in a breath hard, willing himself to push through.

 

“I know a way into the Manor House.”

 

John stared at Elraed, still sitting by the door.  “You’re still here.”

 

Elraed pushed himself up to his feet.  “There’s an entrance on the other side of the house.  They don’t open the door much, there’s a road no one uses—”

 

“I know the road,” said John shortly, which seemed to throw Elraed a little. 

 

“Well,” said Elraed, “it’s kept locked, and there’s never a guard there.  We could use that to get into the Manor House.”

 

John stared at Elraed.  “And do what?”

 

Elraed flushed.  “Bring Sherlock home, of course.  What do you _want_ to do, John?  Watch as Earl Moriarty fucks your omega for you?”

 

The pain in his shoulder was forgotten; John was on his feet and had crossed the room in two steps.  He shoved Elraed up against the wall, using his one good arm across his younger brother’s chest to hold him still.  Elraed trembled, but looked up at John defiantly.

 

“Da was right,” said John.  “The earl has the right to claim whatever he wants of Sherlock tonight.  You’re talking treason.”

 

“You’re listening.”

 

“You really think I can just walk in there and take Sherlock away?” growled John.  “Moriarty would order his knights to kill me on the spot, or worse, have Uncle Simon do it for him.”

 

“He wouldn’t,” said Elraed firmly.  “He might want to – but he won’t be able to do it.”

 

John laughed, incredulous.  “Why not?  He ordered his best knight to spear me in the shoulder with a snap of his fingers!  You think he wouldn’t kill me if he wished?”

 

Elraed shook his head, without breaking eye contact.  “You have to trust me.”

 

“Give me one good reason!”

 

“Because I don’t believe Sir Sebastian would willingly work for the kind of man who would take what wasn’t his – even if it’s owed to him,” said Elraed, stubbornly.

 

“More fool you – that’s _exactly_ the sort of man he works for!”

 

“I know Sir Sebastian.  He’s a _good_ man.  I want to prove it.”

 

John stared at his brother’s earnest expression – the stubbornness and resolve in his eyes, the firm way he held his jaw and looked right back at his older and, in that moment, much scarier brother. 

 

“If you’re wrong, we’re dead,” cautioned John.

 

“And if I’m right, then we don’t have time to lose,” said Elraed. 

 

John stared at Elraed.  “They had horses.  It’s already too late.”

 

Elraed’s gaze was steady.  “And you’re so quick to disregard the only chance you’ve got to save Sherlock?  Because I know this, brother – if the earl has Sherlock first, he’ll never be entirely yours.”

 

Sherlock’s unspoken words slammed into John.

 

_John, I will be fine.  It will be fine.  It will all be…fine._

 

John sucked in a breath so hard, his lungs hurt.  He released Elraed, surprised when the boy fell to his feet.  He hadn’t realized how high he’d been holding him against the wall.

 

“Show me,” said John.

 

*

 

The litter was only big enough for Sherlock, which was a blessing in its own way; he didn’t think he could have stood the ride if Earl Moriarty was in it with him.  Bad enough that the man was on his horse, riding alongside, and talking the whole while.  Luckily, it was difficult to hear him properly, and so Sherlock closed his eyes and rested his hands on his knees, and retreated into his own mind, thinking of his last view of John, on the ground, the lance still lodged firmly in his shoulder.

 

It had been too dark to see the blood properly.  That was a blessing as well.  Sherlock was going to count up as many of them as he could, because at one point, very soon, the blessings would stop. 

 

Godwin had been there, when John was injured, and Godwin was very good at his work.  John would have medical care immediately.  He’d been a bit inebriated, too – that would help stave off infection, surely, all the extra alcohol in his blood?

 

Their bond wasn’t exactly solidified.  If Sherlock died that night at the earl’s hand, perhaps John wouldn’t be thrown into the depression that came from losing one’s bondmate.  That was good, too.

 

The litter bumped and shook over the road, rattling every bone in Sherlock’s body, but he could barely feel any of it, not with his blood already coursing hot through his veins, not with his heart thumping, and the fog of estrus already creeping in at the edge of his thoughts.  That was another blessing, thought Sherlock.  In the throes of passion, omegas lost their minds entirely anyway.  Perhaps if he retreated into his, he wouldn’t remember anything at all.  The whole night would be a hazy, incoherent dream.  His body might not be virginal when he returned to John in the morning, but his mind would be, and surely that would be enough?

 

He didn’t know John well enough to determine whether or not John would feel the same.  Assuming the wound was not fatal – and Sherlock didn’t think it was, not quite.  Dangerous, yes, but…not fatal.  John wasn’t going to die that night.  Sherlock felt his heart quicken at the thought, and tried to breathe through it, to calm himself down.  John wasn’t going to die before morning, when Sherlock would rejoin him, and John wouldn’t dare die if Sherlock was there, because Sherlock had no intention of letting him try it. 

 

Sherlock barely noticed when they arrived at the Manor House, where every window blazed with candlelight.  His heart still pounded; he felt a rush of warmth and trembled as the litter was set down inside the courtyard, near the grand front entrance, where the steps went up higher than his own head to enter the large great hall.  He might have known the house inside and out, but he’d never been up those steps before.  He’d always used the servant’s entrance to the right, which led directly into the servants’ quarters and Mistress Hudson’s larder.

 

Mistress Hudson would be somewhere.  Had she known of Earl Moriarty’s plan?  And Mistress Molly – had she known that it would be Earl Moriarty who would remove his bonding finery, and not John Watson?

 

Sherlock’s heart fell, and he let the weak trembling take over his body.

 

“Come, boy,” said Earl Moriarty lazily, extending his hand into the litter.  “Our bed awaits.”

 

Sherlock thought if he moved, he’d be sick.  He elected not to move.

 

Earl Moriarty shook his hand impatiently.  “ _Come_ , boy.   That is… step out of the litter.  You’ll come for me later in the bed.”

 

The knights hooted appreciatively.  Sherlock might have been surrounded by a pack of demented owls.  He wished he was – he’d have been in the forest then, and would have been able to hide.

 

“Get out of the litter!” barked Moriarty, growing angry.  “Before I break it down to tear you out limb by limb!”

 

Sherlock stared straight ahead, and when Moriarty’s hand closed around his arm, he let himself go limp.  The wooden beams of the litter scraped against his clothes as Moriarty dragged him out of it, and Sherlock fell to the ground bonelessly, a tangle of clothes and limbs and exhausted muscles.

 

Moriarty laughed.  It wasn’t a pleasant laugh at all.  “Do you want me to carry you, is that it?”  And then his voice was much closer, as he knelt down.  When he spoke, it was a whisper meant for Sherlock’s ears alone.  “Or would you rather I take you right here in the dirt, under the gaze of all my men?  They would surely enjoy the show.  Perhaps they’d even want to participate.  Perhaps I would let them.”

 

The blood froze in his veins.  Sherlock blinked, and slowly, feeling his muscles shake and ache with the sudden fever in his blood, pushed himself to standing.  The knights continued hooting and hollering, loud and obnoxious, and Sherlock stared at each of their faces in turn.  It was difficult to make out their features in the moonlight, but he committed each laughing, sneering face to memory.

 

Even the one that was not laughing or smirking at him.  Sir Sebastian looked at Sherlock with an impassive expression, his face stony and solid, his eyes too dark with shadows to properly read.  Sherlock gazed at him a second too long, and saw the knight actually look away, chastised.

 

Sherlock’s breath caught in his throat – but he could hear Moriarty shifting on the ground behind him, the knights already moving away, to their own beds and mugs of ale, and there was no time to give Sir Sebastian’s apparent shame any further consideration.  Sherlock turned back to the house and stared up at the grand staircase for a long moment.  He began to climb, careful to keep his head high, his back straight, his hands demurely clasped in front of him. 

 

“That entrance is not for you,” called Earl Moriarty, amused.

 

Sherlock didn’t turn around.  “And neither are any of mine for you, _sir_ , but you’ll be taking them anyway.  As I take this one.”

 

This time, when the knights broke into laughter, Sherlock didn’t feel the same rush of shame.  Instead, he felt the laughter buoy him up, flow like power into his limbs, and he smiled just a bit, knowing the earl couldn’t see it. 

 

A moment later, Earl Moriarty was at his side, matching his stride.

 

“You’ll pay for that cheek later,” growled Earl Moriarty, and he opened the grand door to usher Sherlock in.

 

Sherlock didn’t answer.  He had no doubt that he would.

 

*

 

John and Elraed walked to the manor by the light of the moon.  They had left the village behind them when John started to wonder just how long he’d been in the fog of anger – it might have even been too late by then.  He didn’t think Earl Moriarty was going to waste much time.

 

The idea was enough to rile up his anger again.  For a moment, John couldn’t quite see anything but the sneer on Moriarty’s face, and the wide-eyed desperation on Sherlock’s. 

 

And then he tripped over a particularly large pothole in the road, and Elraed waited while John breathed in the dust on the road until the angry pounding of his heart and the blood in his ears subsided.

 

“We’re going to be eaten by bears if you don’t get up,” said Elraed mildly, and John cursed.

 

“Bears don’t live in the forest,” said John.  His shoulder protested as he pushed himself to standing, but it hurt somewhat less than John expected; just a dull ache now.  He flexed the muscles and rotated his arm around in a windmill, and while he didn’t have his full range of motion – not anywhere close, really – it could have been a great deal worse.  He didn’t think he’d lose the arm.  Maybe.

 

“I think you should know that this is probably a really bad idea,” said Elraed as they walked.

 

John gritted his teeth.  “You’re the one who came up with it.”

 

“I know.  I’m just letting you know.”

 

“You can always go back home.”

 

“You’ll never get in without me,” said Elraed, with a scoff. 

 

“I don’t see how I’m going to get in a locked door _with_ you.”

 

“Oh, _that’s_ easy.  You’ll wait by the door and I’m going to walk in the front and unlock it for you.”

 

John blinked.  “Oh, sure.  When you put it _that_ way.  Because twenty armed knights couldn’t possibly stop you.”

 

“A dozen, maybe,” allowed Elraed.  “And no, they won’t stop me.  They’ll all be too drunk.  None of them expect the village to come rescuing anyone.  Besides, they know me.  They don’t know who I am.”

 

“That doesn’t make sense.”

 

“They don’t know my last name is Watson,” said Elraed shortly.  “They call me Ale-Boy.”

 

Elraed’s expression was difficult to read in the moonlight, but John heard the hard note in his brother’s voice.  “And you really think they’re going to let you train with them?”

 

“Not if they catch me tonight,” said Elraed stubbornly.  “But they’ll only notice me if you make a ruckus, so keep your mouth shut and your feet fast.”

 

“What, don’t trust your honorable, noble knight Sir Sebastian not to spear me a second time?” snapped John, and Elraed glared at him.  “Why don’t you go to him and ask for his help, instead of sneaking around?  Or don’t you really trust him?”

 

Elraed walked a bit faster.  “Sir Sebastian – I know him.  It’s the others I don’t trust.”

 

“So I just have to find Earl Moriarty’s rooms and get Sherlock out without anyone noticing.  Of course.  Nothing to it.”

 

Elraed stopped walking and rounded on his brother.  “You don’t even realize, do you?  How sodding _lucky_ you are, have always been.  Everything’s always come so easy to you.  Every batch of ale I try to brew, I have to hear about how _John_ brews it better.  Every row I hoe in the fields – _John_ hoes them so neatly, so straight.  Even the stories I told the babies – _yours_ were always better.  Jesu’s blood – I can’t even carry a bucket of water from the river without being told how you’d never spill a bloody drop of it!”

 

Elraed started down the road again, his stiff shoulders hunched over.

 

“The only thing I’ve _ever_ been good at, that you didn’t do _first_ , was with the knights at the manor.  I don’t even _care_ that they don’t know my last name – the point is they _don’t_ care what it is.  They liked _me_ , John.  They thought well enough of me that they wanted to train me as one of their own.”

 

John walked alongside for a few moments, quiet, looking at his younger brother out of the corner of his eye.  Elraed kept walking, eyes focused on the ground, scanning the road for holes.  “Then why help me?”

 

Elraed stopped walking.  He stared straight ahead, as if seeing something else entirely.  “All I know is that Mum was the only one not crying on the cart before they went home.  Even _Peter_ was crying – and he never cries.  But Mum – not a drop.  He just kept staring straight ahead, not answering anybody, not doing anything but petting Cecily’s hair, and saying, _That poor boy, that poor boy_.  I don’t think he meant Peter – do you?”

 

It wasn’t the image of Wil Watson that sprung up in John’s mind, though – it was Hugh’s face, when Elraed shouted, and the thundering mix of guilt and rage that John had almost recognized.

 

_Or did it take that long for Mum to forgive you for being that much of a coward?_

 

John swallowed.  “I’m not a coward.”

 

“You might not be a Watson, either,” snapped Elraed.

 

John’s anger, which had never entirely dissipated, flared again.  “And I suppose _you_ wouldn’t have let Sherlock be taken if he’d been _your_ mate, is that it?”

 

“It wasn’t _Sherlock_ that was taken away from me tonight,” snapped Elraed, and turned to keep walking.

 

But John had seen the bright way that Elraed’s cheeks had shone in the moonlight, in a way that dry skin never would have done.  He watched his brother walk down the road toward the Manor House, just now visible on the hill.  His back was straight, his head was high, and John couldn’t tell if his shoulders shook because of the unevenness of the road, or for another reason entirely.

 

John took a breath, and started to follow his brother down the road again. 

 

*

 

When he’d been a child, Sherlock had explored every part of the Manor House.  There were few rooms he hadn’t examined, still fewer dark corners he hadn’t hidden in at one point or another, the better to observe the inhabitants of the house.  He knew the corners where the north wind blew through the cracks; he knew the hallways that were kept warmer by the fires from the great hall below.  He watched as various servants spent precious minutes wrapped up in each other, when their masters weren’t watching them, and he knew which tapestries covered the secrets etched on the walls behind them, and which merely hid doorways.

 

“What do you think of my house by candlelight, boy?” asked Earl Moriarty as they walked. “You know it well enough by day.”

 

Sherlock held his breath.  “I only know the parts with which I am familiar, my lord.”

 

Earl Moriarty snorted.  “Which is nearly all of it, I dare say.  As if I never noticed you peering around every corner.  Is there single stone unexamined by you in this place?”

 

Sherlock said nothing.  The only rooms he had never dared enter were those that made up Earl Moriarty’s bedchambers.  Even as a small boy, he’d known better than to breach those particular doorways, but he did know where they were, and he walked, unerringly, straight to them. 

 

“Eager little thing, aren’t you?” chuckled Earl Moriarty at his elbow. 

 

“The sooner we begin, the sooner this night is over,” said Sherlock evenly.

 

“Or the longer it goes.  I only have to return you in the morning.  Morning goes for quite a long time, you know.”

 

Sherlock tried not to wince or clench his teeth.  He didn’t falter his steps; he simply kept going. 

 

“I think I’ll start by undressing you,” said Earl Moriarty thoughtfully.  “Would you like that, Sherlock?  Knowing that my eyes are the first to see your naked body, knowing that you are on display for me?”

 

“It doesn’t matter,” said Sherlock.  “The body is only transport.”

 

Earl Moriarty chuckled, amused.  “Keep telling yourself that, beautiful boy, while I’m fucking it in every orifice possible.”

 

Sherlock’s stomach twisted, and the rush of heat that flowed from the twist like water from a wrung-out cloth only made him sicker.  He concentrated on his steps, while Earl Moriarty kept talking beside him, but didn’t hear a word.

 

It wasn’t long before they reached the bedchambers.  Sherlock stared at the double doors, covered in ornate carvings of boars and bears, beautiful details of the flora in the forest, and tried to force himself to open the door himself.  Surely it would go better, if he walked willingly in – surely, if he did not relinquish control, he would still remain himself and therefore John’s when the night was over.

 

But he couldn’t.  His arms couldn’t move from where they remained pressed to his stomach.  He trembled, his legs nearly spent, his mind already far too conscious of the oil-and-perfumed alpha scent that came off Earl Moriarty in waves.

 

“Allow me,” murmured Earl Moriarty, almost like a lover, and pushed the door open.  “Won’t you come into my bedchamber, Sherlock?”

 

Sherlock could see him from the corner of his eye, mouth in a wide grin.  His alpha scent wrapped Sherlock up like sticky strands of floss, numbing him to whatever was going to happen on the other side of the door.  Sherlock thought of John, but he was already growing more distant by the moment.

 

Sherlock’s heart fluttered, frantic; it was all he could do not to fight and lash out, to twist and turn and try to escape.  But struggling would only draw him in closer; struggling would only give more power to the earl than Sherlock wanted to give. 

 

Instead, Sherlock took one last breath, and stepped inside.

 

*

 

Every window in the Manor House blazed with light.  The closer the boys drew to the house, the louder John’s heart pounded.  He scanned the windows, wondering which ones hid Sherlock and the earl behind them. 

 

But such wondering also led to wondering what Earl Moriarty was doing to Sherlock.  Was he removing Sherlock’s tunic?  Caressing Sherlock’s skin?  Was Sherlock gasping and unable to breathe properly for desire?  Was he groaning under Earl Moriarty’s ministrations?

 

“John,” said Elraed, his voice both urgent and cautious, and John fisted his hands tightly when he realized he’d started growling. 

 

It was a bit tricky trying to speak after that.  The possessive growl was lodged in John’s throat; he had to swallow multiple times to loosen the muscles before he could speak, and even then, his voice was rough and thick, and it hurt to form words.  “Sorry, I – sorry.”

 

“Right,” said Elraed, giving his brother a cursory glance.  “I’m going in the front now.  You should stay clear of the house until you reach the back; no one’s going to be on guard in that direction tonight, and if you come closer with me, they’ll spot you and then we’re in for it.  There’s bushes by the back door, you can wait near them and that’ll give you some cover.  I won’t be long.”

 

“And if they catch you?”

 

Elraed shrugged.  “Then the door never opens for you and at daylight you go home and wait for Sherlock to be returned.  You’ve lost nothing but a night of sleep you were never going to have anyway.”

 

John frowned.  “Elraed—”

 

“They won’t catch me,” said Elraed firmly, sounding as if he truly believed it.  He started walking away, without so much as another word, and John watched him for a moment, before beginning to walk the long way around to the back of the Manor House.

 

*

 

The fire was blazing in the corner; Sherlock could feel the heat against his face, despite the warmth of his own skin.  He wanted to take his clothes off, drop them on the floor and pray for a cool breeze.  He wanted to bury himself under a thousand blankets, wrap himself up like a caterpillar in its cocoon, so that Earl Moriarty couldn’t touch his skin.  He wanted to make a running leap for the window, break through the oilskin paper that covered the opening, and either dash his head on the ground two storeys below, or race into the forest where Earl Moriarty couldn’t find him.

 

The last option was the surest means of escape, but Sherlock didn’t think he could move.  Already his heart was pounding so hard, he didn’t think he’d be able to stand for much longer.

 

Earl Moriarty was somewhere behind him; Sherlock could hear the clink of metal, the rippling sound of a liquid being poured into a cup.  He listened as Earl Moriarty came closer, and then saw the cup held out before him, filled with a dark red liquid.

 

“Wine,” Earl Moriarty said.  “Drink; I expect they didn’t allow you ale during your celebrations.”

 

“No,” said Sherlock, his tongue thick. 

 

Earl Moriarty shook the cup a little.  “It’s not _poisoned_.  I’m hardly going to kill you before I’ve had you.  And I’d rather an awake participant, if not an entirely willing one.”

 

Sherlock stared at the cup, still unable to move.

 

Earl Moriarty sighed heavily, and drank from the cup, before handing it back to Sherlock.  “There, do you trust me now?”

 

“No,” said Sherlock, but he took the cup with shaking fingers.  He took the smallest sip he could manage.  The wine was thinner than ale, fruity and impossibly sweet.  Sherlock couldn’t place the flavors; he thought if he swallowed it down, it might come racing back up.  Somehow, it stayed down, and Sherlock closed his eyes, already feeling the alcohol race through his bloodstream and straight up into his brain.  He wasn’t sure if it was because the wine was more alcoholic than ale, or if it was a sign how quickly the blood coursed through his veins.

 

Earl Moriarty drained his own cup.  “Imported from France – good vines there, though the peasants haven’t quite mastered the art of making the wine.  They’ll learn.”

 

“Is that where you’re from?” asked Sherlock, gripping the cup so tightly that he could feel the carving dig into his fingers.  “France?”

 

“I spent some time there in my youth,” said Earl Moriarty carelessly.  “Like to see it someday, would you?”

 

“I’m content here.”

 

“Liar,” said Earl Moriarty softly.  “A content omega wouldn’t spend his time in my library, examining every map I own.”

 

“A lord who has never traveled wouldn’t own so many maps,” countered Sherlock, and expected a slap.  Hoped for a slap, even – but instead, Earl Moriarty threw his head back and laughed.

 

“Clever as always, aren’t you?  Even when you can feel the wine in your heated blood.”

 

Sherlock ran his fingers along the carving on the cup, wondering how much drink it would take to render him unconscious.  Already he could feel the flush in his blood, the rush of heat under his cheeks.  Was that the wine, or his estrus?

 

“Always so clever,” whispered Earl Moriarty, now standing behind him, and Sherlock felt the brush of fingers on his hair.  The earl’s fingers were light and gentle on his skin; Sherlock might have been able to fool himself into thinking they belonged to John – but no, even that was somehow reprehensible.  Sherlock shifted away from the fingers, but something in his body yearned for more even so.  “How old were you, when you first followed your father here – nine, ten?”

 

“Eleven,” said Sherlock, his voice shaking.  He remembered the first day, small and shaking and wide-eyed at the great Manor House, with its stone walls and the wooden floors, grander and more impressive than anything he’d seen before.  Being allowed to sit near his father while Godwin worked, studying old texts and binding wounds, mixing tinctures and applying poultices, and in spare moments, showing his son how to do the same.

 

The earl’s fingers had followed Sherlock’s movement, and continued the soft stroking of Sherlock’s neck.  Sherlock held his breath, quivering.

 

“Your mother died with the bloody flux, hadn’t she?  You could have stayed home, learned to keep house – but no, you wanted to come here.” 

 

He had.  Housework was boring, but at least it had the advantage of letting Sherlock dream as he did it.  And housework, with his mother to talk to, to laugh with, to discuss his latest idea about what he’d learned in lessons the day before – that had been bearable. 

 

But sitting alone in the house that still rang with his mother’s forgotten laughter – that had been worse than anything Sherlock had ever experienced in his young life.  Worse than the day Mycroft had left for his apprenticeship.  Worse than learning he was meant for bonding and breeding, and not the university or some other adventure away from home. 

 

No matter how small and insignificant he felt at the Manor House, it was better than being alone in a house filled with disappointing memories.

 

But in the here and now, the earl’s breath danced on Sherlock’s skin as he spoke, every goose bump rising and responding. 

 

“I watched you grow up, Sherlock.  Such a clever, quick little thing.  Did you know I arranged for the texts from the monastery for you?  Anatomy, Greek and Roman histories, astronomy.  That was your favorite, I think.  Perhaps later, when you’re broken in a bit, I’ll take you up to the tower, and I can fuck you under the stars.”

 

Words, just words.  Sherlock closed his eyes and tried to forget their meaning.  The days he’d spent with his head in the stars, memorizing the charts and dreaming of catching them in his hands… now they seemed tainted and sour.

 

“You kept coming back – as if you wanted to be here, liked to be here.  Do you like to be here, Sherlock?  Isn’t this what you have secretly wanted, all this while?  To be mine?”

 

Sherlock felt sick.  The earl moved behind him, close enough that Sherlock could feel the brush of his coat against the back of Sherlock’s kirtle.  It made him shiver, and Sherlock had to struggle to keep his breaths even.  _Don’t let him see, don’t let him know what you’re feeling…._

 

“I can see the flush in your cheeks, you know.  The sweat on your brow.  How long until your heat hits you full?  Or has it already?  No, you wouldn’t be standing if that were the case.  You’re just aching for it to begin.  The sooner it does, the sooner you can drop the pretense that you don’t want me to take you across that bed and fuck you senseless.”

 

“Easier if I start off senseless,” replied Sherlock, and Earl Moriarty scowled.

 

“I told you, I’d have you willing or not – but you’ll be awake for all of it.  Make no mistake, Sherlock Holmes.  You might think you’ll be able to put this out of your mind, but I’m going to make sure that where I mark you, you remained branded for the rest of your life.  I will always be the first alpha to have known you – and whatever your precious John does to your body in the morning, I will always have done it _first_.”

 

Sherlock stared into the fire, trying not to tremble.  Earl Moriarty’s voice was soft; he could feel his breath at the back of his neck, smell the alpha under the perfume and oil.  Something in Sherlock responded; he could feel the pull of Earl Moriarty behind him, the cool warmth of him, drawing him in like a magnet, and when Earl Moriarty drew a finger down from Sherlock’s ear, down the side of his neck and under his tunic, Sherlock let out an involuntary sigh.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check out the art by auntiesuze, who drew [Sherlock in his wedding finery](http://auntiesuze.tumblr.com/post/130493970890/i-was-inspired-by-azrionas-amazing-medieval)! I'm all a-flutter over here; make sure you tell her what a lovely job she did by liking and reblogging!
> 
> **Trigger Warning:** Continuation and conclusion of the dub-con activities between Sherlock and Moriarty. Please please please - do not hesitate to contact me if you need more information before continuing to read. And those who have contacted me - _thank you_ , and please continue to keep yourselves safe!

Elraed’s first memory was of John telling tales as they lay in bed at night, curled up like puppies with their siblings, all squashed together for warmth. 

 

“This is the story of Sir Lancelot,” John would whisper to them.  Elraed was always right up next to John, with Vicky on the far end, because the little ones might roll off the ticking otherwise.  They giggled and squirmed together, and Elraed would tweak their ears as a reminder to shut their mouths and listen.  The noisier the children, the harder it was for Elraed to hear the story.

 

Elraed’s favorite stories were about the brave and noble knights, their various conquests and daring deeds, the dragons they fought in days of yore.  John’s eyes shone when he told them, and sometimes, when the story became very exciting, his whispers would grow into shouts, and then they’d be bouncing up and down in excitement, and there’d come a hard rapping on the wall from their parents, as a reminder to go to sleep.

 

But John grew older, and began to work more in the brewery, learning their father’s trade.  There were more children warming the bed so well that often, John would fall asleep before he’d even finished half the tale.  So Elraed, being the second eldest alpha, started telling them instead.

 

“You’re telling it wrong,” complained Heryeth.  “That’s not the way John tells it.”

 

“Yes, it is!” said Elraed stubbornly.

 

“You forgot about the dragon, and the miles and miles of water, and if you can’t tell John’s stories right, you shouldn’t try telling them at all.  Tell us something else.”

 

John had always made up his stories from nothing, but Elraed couldn’t think of something like that.  He opened his mouth, and nothing came out.  Heryeth snorted and rolled over.

 

“Never mind then.  You’re just too stupid for it.”

 

It stung.  Elraed wasn’t like John; John could lose his head in the clouds in the brewery and the ale still would taste fine, but if Elraed dropped his concentration for a single moment, the fire would go out or the hops would boil over or the wort would spoil.  He couldn’t _afford_ to spend the day dreaming up stories, when he already spent the day working to keep up with what came to John so naturally.

 

Heryeth needed a new story.  The only person Elraed knew who told stories half as interesting as the ones John told was their uncle the sheriff.  And so Elread started sneaking away to the gaol, under the guise of delivering fresh-baked bread from his mother, or a new casket of ale.  It was possible Simon Murray saw through him – but Simon Murray was well known for his sense of humor, and filled Elraed’s ears with blood-curdling tales of witches and goblins and the ghosts that haunted the woods at night. 

 

But even Simon Murray’s stores of tales of adventure ran thin eventually, and if the children loved them, Elraed did not.  There was only one sure source for tales about knights and dragons and chivalrous adventures – other than John, at least, who didn’t seem inclined to tell the stories anymore, not when Elraed could do the work for him. 

 

And so Elraed set his sights on the Manor House.  Once a week or so, Hugh Watson used the hand-cart to deliver a barrel of ale brewed specially for the earl and his household.  It didn’t take much to convince him to bring Elraed along.  John was needed in the brewery, Heryeth was too little by half, and if Hugh had the mistaken impression that Elraed was finally taking an interest in the family business… well, at least it got him closer to his goal.

 

The knights were training in the inner courtyard when Elraed first spotted them, using their swords against each other in mock battle.  The noise was deafening, particularly to a ten-year-old boy who’d never seen such fighting.  Elraed had thought to ask the bravest of the lot – who would surely have the best stories – but in the end, he chose the knight who was sitting on the side, watching the others train.  He was large and dark and had scars up and down his arms and face, and there wasn’t a kind thing about him.  But the biggest advantage of asking that knight in particular was that he was closest to where Elraed crept.

 

“Stories,” said the knight flatly when Elraed asked, and after a hard look, followed by a burst of rolling laughter, he complied.

 

Elraed came home with a story so thrilling that Heryeth couldn’t sleep for three days.  It was a complete success, and the next week, he went back for another.  And another.  And another.

 

“I’m all out of stories, lad,” said the knight finally.  Elraed might have been a bit scared of him at first, but now he thought the knight looked friendly under all the scars on his face.  “But Sir Sebastian might.  _Sir Sebastian!_ Oi!”

 

The knight who turned to them wasn’t scarred – but he was easily the largest of the group.  His hair was dark and pulled back from his face, and he wore Earl Moriarty’s colors hanging from his belt.  The man he’d just battled lay on the ground, groaning a little from the force of the blow that felled him, though he still laughed, as if he wasn’t a bit surprised at his failure, only that he’d managed to remain on his feet for any length of time at all.

 

Elraed’s eyes widened and he took a step back. 

 

“Oh,” he said, falteringly.  “I… it’s all right.  I have enough stories.”

 

“Not until you’ve heard his,” said the knight, laughing.  “Sir Sebastian!  This lad wants you to tell him a story.”

 

Sir Sebastian fixed his gaze on Elraed.  “You’re the sheriff’s boy, aren’t you?  I’ve seen you about the gaol now and again.”

 

Elraed flushed.  “His nephew, sir.”

 

“Taught you to handle a sword, has he?”

 

“A bit,” said Elraed cautiously, thinking of afternoons polishing his uncle’s various weaponry while learning another tale.  “He doesn’t know any stories about knights, though.”

 

“That’s why the boy’s here,” explained the old knight.  “Wants a few tales to tell his siblings.”

 

Sir Sebastian didn’t look impressed.  “No, he doesn’t.”

 

Elraed’s mouth dropped open, ready to agree and then race for his father’s cart and its relative safety.

 

When Sir Sebastian took a great step forward and dropped his sword, point down, directly in the dirt in front of Elraed, the boy thought he’d die of a heart attack.

 

“He wants his own story to tell,” said Sir Sebastian.  “Go on, boy.  Pull it out of the ground.”

 

“Ah,” said Elraed.

 

“You know the story of Arthur, don’t you?” challenged Sir Sebastian.  “Go on.  Pull the sword from the stone.”

 

Elraed swallowed, and was able to somehow stop looking at Sir Sebastian, and instead look at the hilt of the sword, which was about even with his face.  It was thick, ornate with etchings and words that Elraed couldn’t read. 

 

He reached out, and touched the metal cautiously.  It was still warm from Sir Sebastian’s hands.

 

Elraed wrapped his fingers around it, and pulled.  He pushed, he twisted, he attempted to drag the sword out of the dirt.  It barely even wobbled.

 

The other knights began to shout and yell: laughter and encouragement, jokes about the thin strength of a young boy, whether he was alpha or omega.  But Sir Sebastian remained silent, watching Elraed struggle with a small smile on his face.

 

“I can’t,” said Elraed, tears in his eyes, when he was so exhausted he couldn’t even lift his arms anymore.

 

But Sir Sebastian shook his head.  “Try again,” he said.  “And this time, both hands, deep breath, and draw it straight up, just before you exhale.  Don’t think about doing it, whether or not it’s possible.  Just draw it out, and be done.”

 

Elraed bit his lip and grasped the hilt of the sword.  He stared at his hands, small and thin and spindly, and for a moment, all he could feel was the warmth of the metal. 

 

He took in a breath… and lifted.

 

The sword moved.  Not much; it was heavy, and he was small, and the angle was completely wrong.  But it moved, just a bit, and Elraed was so shocked that he let go and it fell to the ground with a low, almost musical gasp.  The knights around them cheered and laughed, and Sir Sebastian smiled at him.

 

“Here, boy,” he said, and tossed him one of the cloths that hung from his belt.  “Clean the sword, and I’ll tell you a story.  My stories don’t come free.”

 

After that, Elraed worked for his stories.  It wasn’t always Sir Sebastian who told them – but it was Sir Sebastian who set the tasks.  Cleaning the swords, polishing the armor, mending the saddles and bridles, sweeping the dirt in the courtyard so that the knights could practice their swordplay, setting up the targets for archery, collecting feathers for new arrows. 

 

The stories got better, and Heryeth stopped complaining. 

 

Knights came and went, and with them, there were new tales of glory and conquest. Elraed soaked them up as readily as he did everything else: from caring for the horses to caring for the weaponry, from setting up the archery targets so that they didn’t blow over at the first breeze, to repairing the protective gauntlets the knights all wore.  But as the years went by, the tasks never went beyond the simple job of lackey – and the stories, while they became no less interesting, became more predictable in their patterns.

 

Elraed began to chafe a bit.

 

It was the same sword that Elraed had tried to lift that first day.  He was meant to polish it, clean the grass and dirt from the blade.  That was all.  But now he was a strapping lad of fourteen years – strong from carrying the buckets of water for his father’s ale, as well as all the jobs he did for the knights.  He needed both hands to hold the heavy sword, but there was no shame in that, so did everyone else. 

 

He held it out straight in front of him, and his arms shook with the effort.  The blade pointed downward as Elraed was unable to keep it straight up, but Elraed didn’t care.

 

“Die, you foul beast,” he said to his imaginary foe, “and as you feel the prick of my pin pierce you, know that justice and honor have at last been served.”

 

“Good line,” said Sir Sebastian behind him, and Elraed dropped the sword with a clatter and a gasp, turning around.  Sir Sebastian was leaning against the doorway, his arms crossed, amusement etched onto his face.  “I might need to steal it from you.”

 

“I’m sorry,” gasped Elraed.  “I…I’m sorry.  I’ll clean it up.”

 

“Good idea,” agreed Sir Sebastian.  “How old are you now?”

 

Elraed straightened up and frowned.  “Fourteen, sir.”

 

“Is that so?” mused Sir Sebastian.  “I suppose you want to follow in your father’s footsteps, then, and brew ale for the rest of your life.”

 

Elraed didn’t answer right away.  His heart was pounding so loudly he wasn’t sure he could hear properly. “It’s… it’s a good profession, sir.  My father does well enough with it.”

 

“I see,” mused Sir Sebastian, exactly in the way he’d always had, as if he understood exactly what Elraed did not say.  “Your uncle, then.  Training you to take his place when he’s gone?”

 

“He might, sir,” said Elraed cautiously, and then took the chance.  “But he says all the time he could be training me, I spend here instead.”

 

Sir Sebastian’s shoulders shook.  “Is that so?  I’ll speak to your father.  I think it’s well past time we start training you up.”

 

Elraed held his breath.  “Sir?”

 

“Unless, of course, you’ve changed your mind about having your own story to tell some day.”

 

“ _No, sir_.”

 

“Good then.”  Sir Sebastian walked past Elraed and lifted the sword easily from the ground.  “Back to work, Ale-boy.”

 

Elraed did, and found that the work went much better for the anticipation.  And anyway, he didn’t think he would need much “training up.”  He’d spent the last four years watching the knights, hadn’t he, and he knew more than they thought he did.  He had no doubt he’d be riding alongside them on their next adventure – not as a squire, but as one of them, equal to the task.

 

That confidence, more than anything, spurred him to walk boldly up to the Manor House in the dead of night, with the village asleep and John making the long way around.  Elraed had never spent much time inside the house proper – he’d gone into the kitchens often enough, as well as the armoury, which was just off the Great Hall.  He’d been in the Great Hall itself once, for the earl to make some kind of formal inspection of his knights – but he’d been younger and greener and so proud to be allowed to stand with them even if he wasn’t one of them in an official capacity, and at the same time, too scared to look very closely at anything, afraid he might make a serious mistake and never be allowed near the place again. 

 

He did, however, know about the door on the far side of the building, the one that faced away from the village and the courtyard, the one that was kept locked tight at all times.  It was one of the more tiresome duties the knights shared, guarding that door – particularly since it was never used.  Probably couldn’t open if they’d wanted it to, most of them said. 

 

And tonight, Elraed was sure, none of them would be particularly vigilant about guarding it.  Certainly not if he offered to sit and watch it for them.  Wasn’t he nearly one of them already?  No matter he had no idea how to find the door once he was inside.  But how difficult could it be?  Elraed had been in houses before; surely a larger one was simply… larger, not more complex.

 

The front gate was closed, but not locked.  Why would it be?  Earl Moriarty surely didn’t expect anyone to come knocking on his door that night.  And the courtyard was full of the knights themselves, drinking and carousing, laughing amongst themselves and singing the songs that went with bondings. 

 

_Sumer is icumen in_

_Loudly sing, cuckoo!_

_The seed is growing_

_And the meadow is blooming_

_And the wood is coming into leaf now_

_Sing cuckoo._

 

Elraed kept half an eye on the knights, but otherwise stayed close in the shadows.  He’d be one of them, one day soon enough – but just now, his heart pounded for fear they’d see him.  Knights in stories were brave and stalwart and true, never shirking their duty or giving up on their brethren….

 

Elraed thought of John, waiting patiently on the other side of the house, the worry rising like the bread Mum made from the bram. 

 

Elraed’s heart pounded as he reached the door leading into the kitchens.  If it were locked… he’d have to try the entrance by the stables, surrounded by drunken knights, who weren’t so drunk that they wouldn’t notice him so close, or the main doors at the top of the stairs, which would surely attract notice and alarm. 

 

But the door was open, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

 

_The ewe is bleating after her lamb_

_The cow is lowing after her calf_

_The alpha is prancing_

_The omega is calling_

_Sing merrily, cuckoo!_

 

He slipped inside the Manor House, and never once looked back.

 

*

 

Sir Sebastian Moran saw the boy the moment he stepped foot into the shadows on the opposite side of the courtyard.

 

The rest of the knights were too busy singing and laughing by the firelight to notice the child.  Sir Sebastian let them continue; the boy, for the moment, meant them no harm that he could tell, and Sir Sebastian was more curious than anything else what had brought him there that night.

 

It was too dark to see the boy’s face, but Sir Sebastian had been well trained, and by the time the boy slipped into the Manor House by way of the servant’s entrance to the scullery, he had recognized him.

 

With one last grand gesture, Sir Sebastian finished his tankard of ale and stood up.  He buckled his scabbard around his waist, letting it settle into place.

 

“Well, boys, I’m to bed,” announced Sir Sebastian Moran loudly.  “I’d tell you not to drink yourselves stupid, but it’s too late for that.”

 

A roar of approval met this insult, and Sir Sebastian left them to follow in Elraed’s footsteps.

 

The halls in the servants’ quarters were dark, but Sir Sebastian had lived in the Manor House long enough to know his way.  He moved carefully through the corridors, barely breathing himself, which helped since Elraed was breathing heavily enough for three young men.  He wondered what the boy was up to – he was honest enough, and Sir Sebastian doubted he meant to steal anything.  Besides, it would be a fool thing, to steal from servants.  And the boy surely had no idea where he was going – several times, he stopped, and peered around him, and muttered to himself, and once he backtracked and would have spotted Sir Sebastian if he’d only known how to look. 

 

He paused, still as death, when he saw Elraed slip into the armoury.  Sir Sebastian knew the armoury like he knew the lumps and bumps in his own bed, and he heard Elraed move from cabinet to chest to rack, with specific intention if not silence.  He could have confronted the boy then and there – there was, after all, only one door, in or out. 

 

But Sir Sebastian was well acquainted with patience, and the rewards that came to those who practiced it.  And so he waited.  When Elraed appeared again, he carried a broadsword that was nearly too heavy for him to hold, and an axe that might have woken the dead.

 

Sir Sebastian raised his eyes, and marked where Elraed headed next – and reached into the armoury himself for just a moment, before following.

 

It was at least a quarter of an hour before Elraed reached the locked back door. Unguarded – and Sir Sebastian racked his brain for a moment, trying to remember whose duty it had been to sit there that night.  It didn’t matter; Elraed was already on the locks and bars, pulling them back, his ill-gotten arms forgotten on the floor at his feet.

 

When the door opened, the moonlight brought with it the form of John Watson, and Sir Sebastian’s patience was rewarded.

 

It was darker in the corridor than it had been under the stars, but in a way, that was a blessing, because Sir Sebastian didn’t want to see John Watson’s face as clearly as he had when the boy had been on the other end of his sword.  Those were the moments in which one could see their opponent the most clearly, when first blood was drawn – and Sir Sebastian had seen more in John Watson’s face in that moment than he’d thought possible.

 

Now, all he wanted was to listen, and see what sort of man the boy really was.  He’d been brave enough surrounded by his family and friends, empowered by his recent scenting – what would he do now that the scents had faded?

 

And would Sir Sebastian recognize the man he saw in him at all?

 

“What took you so long?” snapped John Watson.

 

“I’m here, aren’t I?” countered Elraed. 

 

“Did anyone see you?”

 

“I’m _here,_ aren’t I?” repeated Elraed impatiently.  “Do you know the way?”

 

“Do I – are you completely off your rocker?  I’ve never been past the kitchens.”

 

“I can show you the way—”

 

The cheek of the lad!  And him wandering around like a lost lamb not five minutes before.

 

“Elraed, no.”  The older boy held Elraed fast.  “You’ll go home.  Straight away.”

 

“John—”

 

“I’m serious, Elraed.  You were brave to help me this far – but there’s a _reason_ you knew how to do it and it’s because you’re _part_ of this house.  I won’t let you risk that.  Whatever happens from here on in, it’s on _my_ head, not yours.”

 

“John—”

 

“Get _out_ of here, do you understand?  I won’t have you ruin your chances of being a knight for me.”

 

Sir Sebastian breathed deeply, satisfied.

 

Elraed shook John’s hand off his arm.  “I’m staying with you.”

 

“Good,” said Sir Sebastian, stepping out of the shadows.  “I would expect no less.”

 

John froze, but Elraed moved quickly, scooping up the axe he’d dropped and holding it before him, as if he meant to cleave Sir Sebastian’s head in two – though perhaps not, because Sir Sebastian saw his eyes widen with shock as Elraed recognized the knight. 

 

“Sir!” he said, excited, and he lowered his axe as he stepped forward.

 

“Ah, now, Ale-Boy,” said Sir Sebastian softly, with as much menace as he could put into the words, “have I taught you so little?  Keep your axe raised – there’s a good lad.”

 

Elraed stared for a moment – and then did as Sir Sebastian bid him.  In fact, he widened his stance, to better bear the weight of the weapon, and even if his chin trembled, his hands did not.

 

Sir Sebastian drew his sword from the scabbard, and held it at his side – ready, if not in position.

 

“Well, Ale-Boy,” said Sir Sebastian quietly, “I think you’ve rather shown your hand, haven’t you?”

 

“Kill me, then,” said Elraed.

 

“Kill an unarmed, untrained boy?”

 

“I have an axe.”

 

“As though you know what to do with it.  Killing you would be an act of cowardice on my part,” said Sir Sebastian, and turned to look at John.  “You, lad.  How’s your shoulder?”

 

“It’ll do,” said John cautiously.

 

“In other words, hurts like the devil himself lodged inside but you’re unwilling to admit it.  Would you be able to hold a sword if I handed it to you?”

 

“I might,” said John.

 

“Try,” said Sir Sebastian, nodding to the broadsword on the ground.

 

John glanced at Elraed, and then bent down to pick up the sword.  It was clearly heavier than he anticipated; his muscles shook with the effort of holding it.  He favored the injured shoulder, but he was strong even so, or he’d never have managed to lift the heavy weapon from the ground.  All the same, the sword itself vibrated so much in his hands that it was a wonder it didn’t hit any of them.

 

Sir Sebastian sighed.  “Drop it, boy.  And take this instead.”

 

Sir Sebastian pulled the long hunting knife he’d taken from the armoury from his belt and handed it to John, who took it without a word, even as he was unable to meet Sir Sebastian’s eyes.  John moved the long knife from hand to hand, testing its weight, before finally lifting it easily – to point the blade directly at Sir Sebastian’s throat.

 

“You’ll take us to your earl, and not raise any alarm or alert anyone to our intentions,” said John firmly, as cool and calculating as if he had any authority at all.

 

Sir Sebastian only smiled.

 

“In that case, follow me, young alpha,” said Sir Sebastian, and he bowed with as much reverence as he could manage, while still keeping his eye on the lads.  “Was that the plan with the axe?  To break down the door to Moriarty’s bedchamber?  You would have brought the entire house on your heads, if you had, the noise it would have made.”

 

Elraed flushed.  “I—”

 

“Leave it, and take the broadsword.  There are other ways to gain access to his lordship’s rooms – and not the method this one’s mate has taken, either.  Follow me.  And if you wish to remain uncaught, Elraed, remember not to breathe as loudly as an ox in heat.  I’m surprised the Heavens themselves didn’t hear you.”

 

He would never have seen the boy blush in the moonlight, but the way Elraed shuffled told him enough about the boy’s reaction.  Sir Sebastian turned his back to them both, and began the journey up to the master’s bedchambers.  Foolhardy, perhaps, to turn his back on them – but Sir Sebastian felt no fear.

 

“Sir,” said John, and Sir Sebastian paused.  “My lord, I mean.”

 

“Time is short,” Sir Sebastian reminded him. 

 

“Why are you helping us?”

 

It was, thought Sir Sebastian, a very good question.  And one he could not answer just then, not in the moonlight, with two untrained but armed boys at his back.

 

Perhaps he’d never be able to explain to them.  Perhaps the explanation was no longer necessary.  Perhaps it was enough that he fulfilled his vows at all.

 

“Is that what I’m doing?” he asked mildly.  “Come along then, and be quiet about it, if you value your lives.”

 

*

 

The first heat had been terrible. 

 

Sherlock had seen heats, had heard heats, was well aware of what happened when one was in the throes of one.  He remembered the creaks and groans of his stepmother’s heats – the first bonding heat, two years ago, and the one a few months later that produced his baby brother.  He remembered the way Isobel had turned from a cheerful, reasonably intelligent woman with a well-ordered mind into a raving, sobbing, uncontrollable… _thing_ , a slave to her body and its desires. 

 

“It’s not quite so frightening, when you’re in it,” she assured him, but she never really understood what frightened him – and what didn’t.  “You can’t think quite straight, and you can’t remember much of anything beyond what you can touch, and all that really exists is this _need_ : a need to touch and be touched and for someone to quench the fire that’s burning inside.  It might look terrible, but when you’re feeling it – it’s as though you’ve forgotten what it feels like _not_ to feel like that, so you don’t miss it very much.”

 

She couldn’t possibly have known.

 

Sherlock liked to think of his memory as a storage chest – or rather, a series of storage chests, all lined up neatly in the solar in a recreation of his father’s house in his mind.  Each storage chest was carefully labeled with whatever it contained, even if the contents of that chest were impossibly messy.  Sherlock could open the chest, and everything fell out of it, instantly recalled.

 

Sherlock didn’t want to recall his first heat.  As soon as it was over, he had deliberately shoved it deep within a storage chest that was kept to the far corner of the solar, where the spiders lurked and the cobwebs were thickest.  It was harder to forget the feeling of utter helplessness he’d had during those few days: the sensation of being a slave to his own body’s desires and needs, to having no control over anything that he said, or did, or wanted.

 

Of all the things Sherlock had in the world, his mind was the only thing was that his and his alone.  To lose it to the sensations of his body: to be unable to remember what the world was like, what _he_ was like – Sherlock could not think of anything worse.  And it was exactly as terrible as he’d feared: that loss of his own mind in the face of his body’s desires.  He’d ceased to be Sherlock.  He’d been some nameless… _thing_. 

 

And now it was starting again.  Sherlock’s mind was a fluttering bird in his head, fighting to get away.  Only his traitorous body wasn’t listening; it was a heavy leaden thing leaning in to the earl, desperate for the smallest touch. 

 

“It’s better when you’re bonded,” Isobel had said, afterwards. 

 

“How?”

 

Isobel hadn’t answered right away.  Perhaps she didn’t have the words; perhaps she was distracted by baby Percival’s fussy nature. 

 

“You’re still not yourself,” she said finally, “but at least you’re not yourselves together.”

 

Sherlock had never given John much thought before then – except as a sort of hazy future.  “When you are older and bonded,” his stepmum would say, in exasperation sometimes, in passing at other times, but Sherlock heard what she meant.  _When you are older and wiser than you are now_.  _When you are settled in your own household and no longer in mine_.

 

It wasn’t that Isobel Holmes _disliked_ Sherlock.  He thought that she was rather fond of him, at times.  But it couldn’t have been very pleasant to have a constant reminder that once, her husband had loved another woman before her.

 

Sherlock stared at the fire and tried to keep his breathing steady.  Earl Moriarty’s bedroom was warmer than the rest of the Manor House: there was a thick rug on the floor, and rich tapestries hanging on the walls.  Heavy brocade curtains hung at intervals throughout the room, covering thin window slits in the walls.  The fabric pooled on the floor, held close to the stone walls on either side.  There was very little stone visible in the room, really, between the rugs and the tapestries and the furniture and the… bed….

 

Sherlock’s brain rolled over, stuttered, stopped.  His body leaned toward the bed, his muscles aching and desperate to rest.  It took every ounce of his control to remain standing where he was, to keep breathing small puffs of air, to keep his mind hyper-alert to every sound that Earl Moriarty made somewhere behind him.  His footsteps, softened by the rugs, the clink of the pitcher and the tinkling rush of liquid as he poured something into the waiting goblets. 

 

_Wrong, wrong, it’s all wrong_.  His lips were still able to repeat the words, even if he didn’t make a sound.  Everything was wrong; the smell of the bedchamber turned his stomach, the crackling of the fire hurt his ears, the rasp of his clothing dragged against his overly sensitive skin. 

 

Earl Moriarty crossed the room, and Sherlock’s breath quickened slightly.  The sickly scent of perfumed oil grew stronger as he approached, and Sherlock’s stomach turned at it.  Under the perfume was the thicker, earthy smell of _alpha_ , close to John’s own scent, but different enough that Sherlock could tell the difference. 

 

Only a single scenting, mused Sherlock, aware of Earl Moriarty now standing behind him, and he could have spotted John from a mile away. 

 

(Ridiculous.  He’d only scented John the once, at the church, a few hours before.  They’d clasped hands, and spoken soft words. Such a scenting was tangential and fleeting at best.  It would wear off in a few hours, without repeated contact.  But Sherlock still had John’s scent in the back of his nose, coating his throat, filling his lungs, and he didn’t dare take a deep breath of Moriarty’s air for fear of dislodging it.)

 

John was nowhere near.  It was not Sherlock’s alpha’s breath on the back of his exposed neck, his fingers on Sherlock’s shoulder, his body warming the air behind him.  There was a fire in the fireplace and fire racing through Sherlock’s veins, but there was still a chill in the air; Sherlock shuddered away from the warmth the other body offered.  Whatever warmth there was, was offered at a dangerous price.

 

(What about John made him _safe_ , exactly?  What about John made Sherlock crave safety?  Everything in Sherlock’s world was _safe_ , he’d been kept safe his entire life, he wanted the opposite of safe.  He wanted danger and excitement and knowledge, and here was Moriarty, standing behind him ready to offer it to him, and all Sherlock could think of was John, and John’s hands in his, and John’s deep eyes making promises he could not possibly keep, of keeping Sherlock _safe_.)

 

It wasn’t John’s finger that ran down the side of Sherlock’s neck now: it was Earl Moriarty’s, and John would not have dug his nail into Sherlock’s skin, that slow scratch that could have raised blood for all that it was so sharp.  The rasp of Earl Moriarty’s nail, the burning trail it left behind it, opened him as surely as a knife would have done, and all the memories shoved deep in that storage chest came tumbling out, every last wretched memory of the heat four months before now shining in the sunlight.

 

It hadn’t just been the helplessness of the estrus that had frightened Sherlock.  That had been terrible, of course.  Perhaps other omegas, the soft and demure ones who took to their household tasks with cheer and joy, were more accustomed to such weakness and therefore handled it with more grace.  What bothered Sherlock was how he had reacted to the desires themselves – not that he had submitted to his base desires, but that he _wanted_ to do so.  He was _happy_ to shove his fingers deep into his body, to shudder around them and feel the release.  He _wanted_ someone to come and take care of him, to caress his body and kiss him and whisper promises into his ear.

 

He’d wanted someone.  Anyone.  Before the scenting, John was as good an alpha for the task as any, if that task was to consume and bind Sherlock, to control him in every way possible.  Now that he’d scented John – let John’s scent imprint on his mind – it couldn’t be anyone else _but_ John who could satisfy him.  That was how it _worked._

 

It should have been John standing behind him.  It _could_ have been John, and as reprehensible as the idea of submitting to anyone would have been… at least it _would_ have been John, who liked him, or seemed to like him, and somehow, that was better. 

 

Sherlock tried to pretend it was John standing behind him, but it was impossible – one scenting was enough for Sherlock to have internalized John’s scent, to respond only to it and no other.  _You and no other_ , that’s what John had said to him, what Sherlock had replied, as they’d shared that moment on the church steps. 

 

It was enough, apparently that Sherlock had no hope of fooling himself, and when Earl Moriarty’s finger slipped beneath the neckline of Sherlock’s tunic, and began to loosen the ribbons there, he held his breath.  When he felt the warmth from Earl Moriarty’s lips hover over his neck, just where an alpha – _John, only John, it would have to be John_ – would leave his mark, Sherlock jerked away with a gasp.

 

“No,” he said, as helpless as he’d been those lost days in his father’s solar, aching his way through his first estrus alone.  “You said… you promised you wouldn’t….”

 

Earl Moriarty’s fingers dug into Sherlock’s arm.  “There now, precious,” he whispered into Sherlock’s ear, and his breath tickled the curls just above it.  “Give into it, Sherlock, it’ll go easier for you.  Or not, I don’t actually care.”

 

Earl Moriarty pressed the side of his nose against Sherlock’s neck and breathed in as he pressed his body against Sherlock’s back.  Sherlock’s entire body shivered with the steady pressure, the hard length of the earl supporting Sherlock even as his legs trembled with the effort not to fall forward.  Sherlock was determined to stay standing… he _wouldn’t_ fall forward and present himself to Earl Moriarty, no matter how badly his traitorous body wanted to do just that, despite the confused scents in his nose.

 

_John_ , he thought, desperately, and tried to remember how John’s scent was different.  Drier – Earl Moriarty’s scent was wet and dripping, but John smelled clean and dry, like the fields in the highest part of summertime, the wheat waving in the breeze.  Earl Moriarty smelled dark and dank, musty and moldy, and Sherlock whimpered when he realized what Earl Moriarty was doing, running his hands up and down Sherlock’s body, his nose and open mouth against Sherlock’s sweat-and-saliva-slicked skin.

 

He was _scenting_ him, in a gross approximation of what Sherlock had let John do just hours before in front of the church.  He could feel his clothes loosen – the tunic ripped at the shoulders, as Earl Moriarty’s kisses and fingers grew increasingly more aggressive.  The heavy purple wool fell to his feet, shed like a skin.  Earl Moriarty pulled at the straps of the kirtle, working them roughly down Sherlock’s shoulders, past his elbows, until it fell atop the tunic, and Sherlock stood in the center of the bedroom, clothed only by his thin white shirt, and his dark grey leggings. 

 

It was almost as good as being naked.  He _would_ be naked soon, and despite the warm summer air and the fire nearby, Sherlock shivered.  His shirt was already soaked through with sweat; the leggings felt uncomfortably damp on his legs. 

 

A lesser omega would have let out a sob, but Sherlock bit his lip so hard that he drew blood, and held himself as tensely as he could manage.  He gripped his hands and tried to keep breathing. 

 

“You wore my flowers,” said Earl Moriarty wonderingly, running one finger through the curls on Sherlock’s head, before wrapping a curl around the digit and pulling it harshly.  Sherlock couldn’t help the cry, though it sounded a bit too much like a moan.  “Oh, I like that, Sherlock.  I admit, there’s something pleasurable about a pliant omega – but something much more delightful about an omega who struggles.  Are you going to struggle, my sweet Sherlock?”

 

“Not your Sherlock,” he managed to say, before Earl Moriarty tugged hard on his curl again.

 

(John would not have torn at his clothes.  John would not have pulled so harshly at his hair.  John would not have the confidence of the earl; he would have been shy and careful and smiling.)

 

“Tonight you are,” Earl Moriarty whispered into his ear, and ran his tongue along the inside curve.  “I’d continue to undress you here by the fire, Sherlock, but I’m afraid that once you’re naked, you’ll lose your mind to the rut entirely, and I’d much rather you remember what a real bed feels like when your lover is pressing you into it.  So much more comfortable than that ticking mattress your John is going to use under you tomorrow.  You’ll be thinking longingly of my feathers soon enough, believe me.”

 

“I won’t,” Sherlock said, making his voice as much a warning and a declaration as he could, despite how high and broken he sounded, but all Earl Moriarty did was chuckle softly against his shoulder.  “I’ll forget this.  I won’t remember.  None of this will have happened.  And I _won’t_ scent you.  I don’t want that much of you in me.”

 

“Oh, you’ll have plenty of me in you before the night is over,” said Earl Moriarty smugly.  “But not my scent.  I get to have you, Sherlock – that’s how this night works.  But if you scented me, you’d have part of the pleasure as well – and why would I want you to have that?”

 

Earl Moriarty reached one arm around Sherlock and slid his hand under the white shirt, brushing only briefly over Sherlock’s groin and running up his clothes to his chest, where he pulled the young man to him tightly.  His other arm remained hooked around Sherlock’s shoulder, keeping him close and upright, with little chance of escape.  “You’re mine, Sherlock.  I’m not yours.  Best remember that.”

 

Earl Moriarty’s hand ran beneath Sherlock’s shirt, running up along his skin.  His fingers weren’t nearly as smooth as they appeared; Sherlock felt them catch on his skin and it made him gasp.  They weren’t as rough and used as John’s hands would have been – _would be_ , Sherlock reminded himself roughly.  But these were not hands that were unused to work, though perhaps not in some time.

 

And then Earl Moriarty’s fingers found Sherlock’s nipple, and _twisted_ , his nails digging in beneath the pearl at the tip.  Sherlock let out a cry.  The desire and warmth that had pooled in Sherlock’s belly rushed out along his limbs, like water flowing out of an overturned glass.  Heat ran along his arms and legs; blood dancing like fire.  There was a rush of warmth on his groin, between his legs, and he fell back against the earl still standing behind him, as Earl Moriarty chuckled again.

 

“Anxious, aren’t you, my dear?” said Earl Moriarty, cruel laughter in his voice, and the fingers of the hand that held him upright caressed Sherlock’s face so lightly that Sherlock moaned and turned to draw the fingers into his mouth.  “Ah, there now.  Like that, do you?”

 

He did – Jesu help him, he _did_.  The fingers tasted the way the man smelled, all oil and perfume, and Sherlock wanted to choke on them.  He _did_ choke on them, as the earl shoved them into his mouth and made it difficult to breathe. The part of Sherlock that wanted to bite them off was receding – all that was left was the desperate, craving, needful _thing_ who wanted to suck the earl’s fingers down into him. 

 

It wasn’t scenting – but it was _something_.  The earl wasn’t right – the earl would never be _right_ , but he was _right there_ , and that made him the closest to right that he was likely to get anytime soon.

 

“Christ, I want to fuck you,” came the whisper.  “I want to spread you open on this bed and push my cock into your sopping arse.  Do you have any idea how good you smell to me, Sherlock?  You’re soaking into my clothes, you’re dripping onto my rug; I’ll smell you for weeks after this.  I’m going to come so deep inside you that every time you fart, you’ll smell me.  You’ll remember you had my cock in you, you’ll remember what it was like to be taken so deep.  Is that what you want, Sherlock?  Is it?  Say yes.  Be a good boy now, say _yes_ , Sherlock.”

 

And then the fingers hooked around Sherlock’s bottom teeth, and _pulled_ , and Sherlock let out a shocked cry of pain.

 

“Shall I undress you now?  You’re so wet, I can smell it on you. I can _see_ it.  Do you want to be naked for me now, Sherlock?  Do you want me inside you?  Do you even remember the events that brought you here to my bed and my body?  I can make you feel so good, Sherlock.  Even without my scent in you, I can make the pain go away.”

 

Sherlock couldn’t remember what he did and did not smell anymore.  All he knew was that he _ached_ , and he _wanted_.  Sherlock’s body was wracked with desire; every inch of him aching and wet, desperate to be covered and pressed down.  He was going to fly away with wanting and hoping and wishing, and the thought of floating into the atmosphere, feeling weightless and untethered, frightened Sherlock far more than anything else.

 

“Yes,” gasped Sherlock when the fingers released his jaw.  Just _saying_ the words brought a sense of relief – soon it would be over.  Or if not over, at least bearable.  And more than anything – more than even being back to himself, more than the sense that with every passing moment, he became less _Sherlock_ and more whatever remained when he himself was lost – Sherlock wanted to be able to breathe without the sense that every breath was his last.  “Oh, God, yes, _please_.”

 

“Please what, little one?”

 

Sherlock nearly screamed.  It was too much; it was _all_ too much, and if he didn’t find some release soon, he would burn.  He _was_ burning, and the only hope of relief was teasing him too much to comply.  “ _Fuck me_.”

 

The man’s fingernails scratched ribbons down Sherlock’s stomach as his fingers hooked around the waistband of his leggings; they started to pull the cloth down, dragging Sherlock’s heavy cock with the damp wool.  Sherlock’s head swam with the sudden scent in the air: the rich, heavy scent of his own pheromones, his own sweat and sex rising, and his entire body convulsed, every nerve ending screaming for something to weight him down before he jumped out of his skin entirely, looking for comfort.

 

And then his cock sprang free, and Sherlock cried out with the sudden shock of it, eyes closed and head thrown back in ecstasy, just as Earl Moriarty’s mouth descended.

 

*

 

The interior of the Manor House was dark and stuffy, filled with the scent of dust, ash, and something that John couldn’t quite place – something that was almost earthy, but cold.  It wasn’t until Sir Sebastian stopped in his tracks and shoved them both against the walls that he realized what it was.  His heart pounded in his chest, and the sweat on the back of his neck trickled down his spine; for a moment he thought the knight meant to kill them both before making another move, but then he heard the footsteps of one of the servants passing through, and realized that he had only meant to keep their movements unnoticed.

 

John smelled the earthy, dry scent, the gravel rubbing against his cheek, and wondered if his fears would always smell like stone.

 

“Can you smell him?” Elraed murmured, after the servant had passed through, and John shook his head when Sir Sebastian glared at them to be silent.  John had wondered if he’d smell Sherlock throughout the house – he knew how the house reeked with a sickly sweet smell when Wil was in heat.  On warm summer nights, John and Elraed would hustle their siblings out to sleep under the stars, leaving the house to their parents, in order to escape it.  But Sherlock’s scent was only a memory; John had the sudden fear that perhaps Sherlock wasn’t even _in_ the house.  Would Earl Moriarty have taken him somewhere else entirely?

 

“Boy,” said Sir Sebastian to John, his voice raspy in the dark.  “What do you intend to do when we reach the bedchamber?”

 

John swallowed.  To be honest, he hadn’t quite planned that far.  “Get Sherlock.  Take him somewhere safe.”  As though anywhere could be safe – but surely they would find somewhere.

 

“And if we are too late?  If his virtue is no longer intact?”

 

For a moment, John’s blood flared in his skin.  _Tear Moriarty limb from limb_ , he wanted to say.  _Beat him into bloody, lordly pulp._

 

“Find somewhere safe,” said John, squashing the instinct down.  “And treat him as gently as I can.”

 

_And make sure he is still mine_ , he didn’t say, and was glad he didn’t when Sir Sebastian nodded shortly. 

 

“Then that is what you will do.  Retrieve your mate, John Watson, and leave the battle to me.”

 

“But—”

 

“No argument,” said Sir Sebastian firmly. 

 

“Don’t worry, John.  We’ll handle Earl Moriarty,” said Elraed firmly, gripping his sword tightly, but the knight fixed his gaze on Elraed. 

 

“You will assist your brother.”

 

Now Elraed protested.  “But—!”

 

“This is not your story to tell, lad.  There will be others, I swear to you.”

 

“It’s not your story, either,” said Elraed quickly, and Sir Sebastian merely raised an eyebrow.

 

“I have not told you all my stories,” he said quietly.

 

John stared at the knight for a moment.  “I don’t understand.  Why would you fight your master for us?”

 

Sir Sebastian stood, and held his sword before him again.  “We must keep moving.”

 

“But—“

 

“Time grows short,” said the knight, and began moving again.

                                                                                                                                               

John knew the moment they reached the main corridors of the house, when he caught Sherlock’s faded scent in the air.  John wasn’t sure how he knew it was Sherlock’s, with only a few minutes’ scenting so many hours before, but it was unmistakably his, clean and fresh as green leaves and summer sunshine, and for a moment, John couldn’t move, breathing it in.  “He’s here,” he said, dazed, and as much as he feared for Sherlock, he was also somewhat relieved.

 

“John?” asked Elraed, confused.

 

“He’s caught Sherlock’s scent,” explained Sir Sebastian.

 

“I don’t smell anything.”

 

“You weren’t the one to scent him, were you?  Now, quickly, boys.  The doors are just here.  After me.”

 

John’s heart pounded.  He gripped the hunting knife in his hand, feeling the sweat between his skin and the hilt, and prayed he wouldn’t drop it, no matter what was behind the doors.  He wasn’t sure that being behind Sir Sebastian was a blessing or not – if he had opened the door, and seen Sherlock in any state of undress – he might not be able to move, and that would be the end of them.  But then, for anyone else to see Sherlock in such a state….

 

It was the cry that loosened John’s bones.  John couldn’t place it, couldn’t say if it was a cry of pain, or pleasure, or desire, or disgust.  All he knew was that it was Sherlock, and he pushed past Sir Sebastian and his brother to race into the bedchamber, his knife before him.

 

The only light source was the fire in the center of the far wall, but it lit the room with such a hearty, yellow glow that it was like walking into a golden cloud.  The room was heavy with the scent of perfume and pheromones, and under that, Sherlock’s own scent.  John nearly choked on it, but his body turned, instinctively, to Sherlock standing before the fire.  The earl stood at Sherlock’s back, body curled around Sherlock in a gesture that could only be interpreted as possessive.  Sherlock’s tunic and kirtle were at their feet, and John saw the flash of Sherlock’s skin beneath his shirt, and his stomach gave a lurch.

 

Or perhaps that was the pheromones, the thick scent of Sherlock in the air, mixed with something else entirely: something cloying and sweet that made John’s blood boil while at the same time his stomach turned. 

 

Earl Moriarty eyes shone in an unsettling way. “Look, love,” he said with a smirk.  “We’ve an audience.”

 

John’s blood boiled under his skin.  He rushed Earl Moriarty, his knife at the ready, and Earl Moriarty moved smoothly, pushing Sherlock to the side and letting him fall to the couch nearby.  He ducked from the knife, and caught John by the wrists, his fingers digging into the soft skin there.  It was enough: John dropped the knife to his feet, and let out a howl, before Earl Moriarty twisted the arm already weakened by the injury to his shoulder. 

 

But the twist also brought John closer, and John could smell Sherlock’s sweet scent faintly on Moriarty’s skin.  It was enough to enrage John even further; he reared up with strength he didn’t realize he had, and bit the man’s ear so hard he could taste the perfumed skin and coppery blood in his mouth.

 

Earl Moriarty let out a roar, and pulled back, wrenching John’s arms and throwing him off as easily as a sack of grain.  John hit the floor hard enough to knock the wind out of his lungs; his head cracked against one of the wooden chairs and for a moment, John saw multiple Earl Moriartys and a sky full of stars.

 

John blinked.  It didn’t help.  The alpha inside him still raged, but his head pounded and felt as if it had caved in on itself.  Somewhere, Sherlock was whimpering and giving off small gasps.  John could still smell him – dry and clean and lovely, and John’s body was thrumming with every sound Sherlock made, as if his muscles were trying to respond, to find him, to cover him and protect him.

 

“Idiot boy,” snapped Earl Moriarty, somewhere above him, and breathing heavily.  John tried to focus on him; it was difficult when there were three of them, and all three were tenderly touching their bloodied ears with a lace-trimmed handkerchief.  “Sir Sebastian, I said I didn’t want to be disturbed.”

 

“I found them loitering outside,” said Sir Sebastian, somewhere by the door.  “Recognized the blond one from the other end of my sword, and thought—”

 

“No, quite right,” said Earl Moriarty, with a smirk in his voice that made John’s stomach twist.  Earl Moriarty pulled the handkerchief away from his ear, glanced at it, and then turned to John again.  “Come for a demonstration, did you, boy?  Sit back and observe, perhaps you’ll learn something.”  He glanced over John’s head.  “Run them through if they cause trouble, Sebastian.”

 

“As you say, my lord,” said Sir Sebastian, and then there was a scuffle and a cry from Elraed.

 

“You _rat_!” howled Elraed, and John thought he could hear the sounds of grunting and shuffling.  Elraed would be fighting the knight who had claimed to want to help them.  “You said you’d _help_ us, you said – you told us—”

 

“Shut your mouth, boy,” growled the knight, and there was a smack and a howl, and then Elraed fell silent except for the faint sounds of sniffling. 

 

Earl Moriarty howled with laughter.  “Sir Sebastian Moran, a traitor?  You thought – oh, my boys, my little, innocent, silly boys.  Sir Sebastian has been loyal to the Earl of Mansfield since long before you were born.  Isn’t that right, Sir Sebastian?”

 

“Oh, yes,” said Sir Sebastian, low and dangerous.

 

John struggled in an attempt to get to his feet, but Earl Moriarty rested his foot on John’s chest and pushed him back down.

 

“Do you know what scenting does, boy?” asked Earl Moriarty, his voice soft above the sounds of Elraed crying somewhere behind them, but Sherlock had gone quiet, except for the soft sound of his breaths.  Not quite a pant, but heavy and desperate for additional air.  “He was always coming into estrus, your omega.  But scenting just tells him an alpha’s near.  Reassures the bits in the back of his brain that he’s about to be cared for – that he’s about to be mounted and fucked and bred.  He doesn’t care who does the deed – not right now.  He’d let any alpha mount him.  The Devil himself, if he were in this room.”

 

John saw the grin splitting Earl Moriarty’s face; the sweat-slicked hair and the brightly shining eyes in the orange firelight, and thought the Devil himself was already there.  “He’s mine.  _I_ scented him.  _Me_.”

 

Earl Moriarty scoffed.  “He won’t remember who you are until I’m done with him.”

 

“He’s still mine,” snapped John.

 

Earl Moriarty laughed.  “He was never yours.  He’ll never _be_ yours, no matter how much you fuck him and scent him and knot him.  But that’s the difference between you and me, boy. You think you can own your omega?  That he owes you allegiance and obedience simply because some fool in robes at the church door said as much?  I know better.  He’d give it up to any alpha who comes along.  You’d best learn it too, if you want to keep him.”  Earl Moriarty stood up again, and continued wiping his hands on his handkerchief.  “I’ve had several dozen omegas, boy.  They’re all the same in the end: only worth what’s between their legs.”

 

Earl Moriarty turned then, to where Sherlock was shaking on the couch.  “Now, then, my pretty one, where was I?  Sebastian, be so kind as to _do your job_ and keep the children back.  This is one area in which I don’t require assistance.  Watch, boys.  You might learn something.”

 

Sherlock stared right back up at Earl Moriarty, and his face looked calm now, instead of lost and aching, as it had been when John had caught sight of it before.  In fact, John almost thought that Sherlock was about to break into a smile.

 

But it wasn’t Sherlock who broke the tension in the room.

 

“I dare say they will,” said Sir Sebastian calmly, and John saw the knight standing on the other side of Earl Moriarty, his sword raised and aimed directly at the earl’s heart.

 

Earl Moriarty didn’t flinch.  He stared directly at his knight, his gaze so cold and unflappable that John felt a shiver go down his spine.

 

“Then,” said Earl Moriarty slowly, as if speaking to an imbecile.  “Put. Your. Sword. _Down!_ ”  He ended on a shout, and both John and Elraed jumped where they remained on the floor. 

 

Sir Sebastian did not flinch, or blink, or waver. 

 

 “I believe my sword is where it should be, _my lord_ ,” said Sir Sebastian, mocking and cold, and Sherlock slid down from the couch to the floor, slowly began to shift toward John, edging closer in small increments.  John’s body thrummed with every move; he wanted to leap across the floor to pull Sherlock into his arms, but he didn’t dare.  Every move Sherlock made was one that Earl Moriarty might see – and anything more would have been reckless and surely gained Earl Moriarty’s attention again. 

 

“You dare point your sword at your master?”

 

“ _You_ are not my master.”

 

“I am the Earl of Mansfield, you are sworn to protect me!” said Earl Moriarty, his voice loud and cold and angry all at once.

 

“I serve the _true_ Earl of Mansfield, sir, and you are not him!”

 

“I _am_ the true earl!”  Earl Moriarty’s voice was a shout; he was trembling and shaking.  John felt warmth at his back and turned to see Elraed, his own breath coming quick and his eyes wide but determined.  John was too tense to feel proper relief that Elraed was well, or to notice the way Elraed was watching the play unfold before them.

 

“You are a traitor to the crown and a pretender to nobility,” said Sir Sebastian.  “You committed atrocities and blamed others for your actions.  You stole these lands and title under false pretenses but my vows to the _true earl_ live on.  His vengeance is my responsibility and _I. Will. Have. It._ ”

 

And then John stopped paying attention, because Sherlock was next to him, trembling and shaking, soaked with sweat and something else, smelling so strongly of his own delicious scent, and pressing his nose into John’s neck.  John felt Sherlock breathe out his relief against his skin, and John wrapped his arms around him, his heart pounding with fear and relief. 

 

It wasn’t true, what Moriarty had said.  It couldn’t be – could it?  That an omega, lost in heat, would give it up to any available alpha.  That Sherlock wasn’t _Sherlock_ any longer, but some lust-driven thing.  John thought of his mother, of the way Wil trembled and cried out, the way he clung to Hugh Watson and how Hugh wrapped him in his thick arms and held him close, whispering in his ear.

 

(Wil, who had been taken by the previous earl on his bonding night.  Wil, who had perhaps cried out in this very room, twenty-two years before, arching his back and begging for release.  Wil, who didn’t bear a child after John for another four years….)

 

But Wil was still Wil.  Sherlock was still Sherlock, brave and reckless and determined.  Even if he was mewling and cowering in John’s arms now – it was still Sherlock, and he’d crawled to John, not Moriarty….

 

He’d _crawled_.  John felt sick. 

 

It was instinct, more than any sort of thought process.  John pressed his nose into Sherlock’s neck, so that Sherlock’s own nose was pressed into his, and breathed as deeply as he could.

 

The clang of swords broke them apart, and John reluctantly lifted his head from Sherlock’s skin and stared at the swordplay in front of the fire.

 

The knife John had dropped was too short for Moriarty to use as a sword, but the man made good use of it anyway.  Sir Sebastian might have been the best swordsmen of the knights and guards in Moriarty’s employ, but his master appeared to have been well-trained in swordplay.  In fact, had Moriarty’s knife been a proper sword, he might have had the advantage; as it was, they were evenly matched.

 

The earl and the knight swung their weapons at each other, parrying and thrusting and darting over the furniture in their way.  The firelight threw their shadows up on the walls, distorting them and falling into shadows. 

 

Sherlock pushed himself up, his breath coming quickly.  “John….”

 

“I know,” said John, and he did.  If there was ever time to go – now was it. He turned to Elraed, startled to see the white of his brother’s face against the dark room, the tension in the way Elraed crouched on the floor, the whites of his knuckles where he clutched his sword, ready to spring.  “Elread.  _Elraed_.”

 

“We can’t leave him,” hissed Elraed.

 

“We can’t _stay_ ,” John hissed in response.  “He said to go, Elraed.”

 

“I’m a _knight_ , John—”

 

“You’re not even a _squire_!”

 

“I won’t leave him!”

 

“Well, I won’t leave _him_ ,” snapped John, nodding his head at Sherlock, “and I can’t find my way out without you, I didn’t even pay attention on the way in.”

 

Sherlock’s fingers tightened on John’s sleeve. “John,” he repeated, a bit more broken than before, and when John looked at him, he saw with horror that Sherlock’s features were clenched in pain.

 

John turned back to Elraed, anger burning so brightly that he could barely speak.  “We’re going,” he said shortly.  “ _Now_.”

 

Elraed stared at him for a moment, face frozen in a sort of awed fear – and then he nodded, shortly. 

 

Moriarty and Sir Sebastian were still fighting, but the only face that John could see now was Sir Sebastian’s, folded in concentration and determination as he kept Moriarty’s back to them.  The knight didn’t even look at them, but his sword flew through the air as if he was completely unconscious of its weight.

 

The three of them crept along the floor, out of the way, with Sir Sebastian continually keeping Moriarty’s back to them.  Finally they reached the far wall, near one of the larger windows, where the curtains were drawn back.  Elraed shifted to Sherlock’s other side.

 

“We can stay in the shadows until we reach the door,” he whispered.

 

“No,” said Sherlock, his gaze still caught by the window above them.  “What’s out that window?”

 

Elraed stood quickly to look.  “The stables,” he said when he came back down.

 

Sherlock nodded, satisfied.  “There’s a secret passage just behind that tapestry.  Help me stand, we’ll slip behind and they won’t notice.”

 

John stared at Sherlock hard.  “How do you know about secret passageways in Moriarty’s bedchamber?”

 

“Not the time, John,” said Sherlock absently. 

 

Elraed chuckled, and John shot him a glare.  When Elraed reached to help Sherlock stand, the possessive, predatory growl in John’s throat escaped before he could help it. 

 

Elraed shot him a startled look that quickly turned cautious.  “Down, alpha, I know he’s not for me,” said Elraed quietly, and John tried to tamper down his alpha enthusiasm. 

 

It happened so fast.

 

There was a loud crash and a cry, and then Moriarty let out a howl of rage.

 

“Why you – _get away from him, he’s mine!_ ” Moriarty roared, and disregarding Sir Sebastian’s sword, spun around on his heel and advanced toward the boys.  He brandished the hunting knife at John as if he meant to spear him through.

 

“ _No!_ ” screamed Elraed, and with a mighty shove, pushed Sherlock and John toward the window, throwing himself between his brother and the earl.

 

John turned just in time to see the knife go through Elraed’s stomach, and where time had moved at lightning speed… now it stopped entirely.

 

Elraed let out a gurgling choke, before sliding right off the knife and falling onto the floor at John’s feet.  He blinked twice, and let out a strange, mewling sort of cry that was more blood than sound. 

 

Moriarty let out a faltering laugh, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he’d done, but found it pleasing just the same.

 

The air smelled like blood and sex and ash, and John thought his heart was being ripped in two. 

 

“Enough of this,” said Moriarty, and pulled the knife back again, clearly intent on driving it through John, and perhaps Sherlock as well.  “Enough of _all_ of this.”

 

John closed his eyes, ready to die, and a moment later, heard the clang as a second blade met the first.  When he opened his eyes again, he saw Sir Sebastian standing in between them and Moriarty, as if to protect them.

 

“Yes,” said Sir Sebastian coldly.  “It _is_ enough.”

 

“Get out of the way,” said Moriarty through gritted teeth, and took a step forward – but Sir Sebastian flicked his sword easily, and a line of red blood appeared on Moriarty’s cheek.

 

Moriarty stumbled back, his eyes ablaze with bloodlust and alpha rage.  “You – you _dare_ ….”

 

“I have dared the last twenty years,” said Sir Sebastian coolly.  “But I have been waiting for the time to be right.  I have watched you perform and order so many atrocities, and blame others for your own misdeeds.  At times I may have helped you, in order that you would bring me closer into your service, the better to place myself for when the time came to end you.  And I say to you now, you will commit your crimes under my watch no longer, and in murdering this boy, you have slain your last innocent.”

 

And then Sir Sebastian smiled, and raised his sword even with Moriarty’s chest.

 

“Die, you foul beast,” he said thickly, and to John, it sounded as if the words had been rehearsed so many times that they were said with both joy and sorrow, “and as you feel the prick of my pin pierce you, know that justice and honor have at last been served.”

 

Sir Sebastian wielded his sword as if it were no heavier than a feather, and yet John remembered exactly how difficult they were to hold.  The weapons clanged together, loud as church bells in John’s ears, and the blood that still coated Moriarty’s knife fell in small droplets.

 

John jerked when the hand touched his shoulder, and he turned to stare at Sherlock.  His cheeks were still flushed, and he breathed heavily, but his eyes were clear.

 

“John,” he said, low, and glanced at Elraed’s body and the growing bloodstain beneath it.  “We have to go.”

 

“No,” said John, and gripped Elraed’s wrist tightly.  “We can’t.”

 

“John,” repeated Sherlock urgently.  “I… I can’t… I….”  He swallowed, and the clear look in his eyes was pained for a moment.  “It smells like….”

 

For a moment, it looked as if Sherlock was going to be sick, and then he leaned forward and pressed his face into John’s neck, and the trembling in his body eased as he took a deep breath, and his fingers clutched John’s shirt. 

 

John took a breath, and thought he knew what Sherlock meant.  Blood, and ash, and oily perfume… and Moriarty.  John wanted to choke on it.

 

He held Elraed’s wrist tightly, but there was no response, and when he looked into his brother’s eyes, they were dull and cloudy, staring into nothing.

 

“John,” said Sherlock again, pulling him toward the tapestry that surely hid the secret passageway.

 

But again there was no time – there was a crash and a scream, and the two fighting men, grappling now with their weapons between them fell against the wall with a thud, blocking the way.  Sir Sebastian’s back was to the wall, and Moriarty had his hands around his neck, choking his face into purple and red, while his own face seemed to be consumed in a blood lust that was beyond any sense.

 

Sherlock took a breath, and wrapped his hand around John’s wrist.

 

“No time,” he said, in a voice that could have been entirely clear of pheromones or estrus, and he sprung easily up to the windowsill.  “Come on, John!”

 

“Sherlock!”

 

But Sherlock was right – there was no time, and unlike Sherlock’s previous escapes through windows, there was no rope to hold.  John took one last look at Sir Sebastian.  The knight’s face furrowed in concentration, welts on his cheeks and blood on his tunic.  John couldn’t tell if Sir Sebastian was losing or wining, or even if the man realized that John and Sherlock were slipping away.

 

John wrapped his arms around Sherlock as they both fell down, and John closed his eyes and prayed harder than he ever had in his entire life.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Trigger Warning:** Not for anything physical, but John and Sherlock discuss what happened with Moriarty, and... well, let's just say that they're super emotional and may have some extremely wrong and terrible opinions about their roles in what happened.

John and Sherlock crashed through the thin roof of the stables and into a thick pile of hay.  The landing knocked the wind right out of John’s lungs.  Sherlock was tangled in his arms and legs, gasping for breath, and John stared up at the gaping hole they’d left in the roof, too shocked to even thank their luck that they hadn’t landed on a horse or one of the dividers between the stalls.

 

“John,” gasped Sherlock, desperate, and he pressed against John, briefly, before springing away, shoving against John as if he were on fire.

 

John felt a little as if he were on fire – at least, his bones ached with heat and something else, something that burned and glowed, like the embers that rose into the starlight on the darkest winter nights.

 

_Elraed, laughing around the Beltane fire, the sparks rising, all of them singing and laughing and dancing, the way Elraed swung Cecily in the air…._

 

“We have to move,” said John, and tried to sit up. 

 

“I know.”  Sherlock’s voice was high and pained, and he crouched on the other side of the stall, ready to spring, his eyes watching John warily.  “Horses.  There’s horses….”

 

_The previous earl was good with horses._

 

John’s stomach churned, and he caught his breath.  “We can’t steal a _horse_.”

 

“You stole _me_ , I’m worth more than a horse,” countered Sherlock, and closed his eyes as another wave washed over him.  He began to giggle with hysteria.

 

John pushed himself to his feet.  It took a great deal of effort.  “Riding.  Horses,” he managed to say before he collapsed into nervous laughter.  “Oh, God, we can’t laugh, we’re supposed to be _escaping_.”

 

“There’s a horse _right there_ , John,” said Sherlock through the giggles, pointing at the horse that looked at them from the stall next to them, and John gave up trying to argue with Sherlock.

 

“Wait here.”

 

John approached the horse cautiously.  Oxen, he knew.  Large and bullish and stubborn and needing a strong hand and steady nerves.  Horses, though – they had always seemed more skittish and delicate, and while John wasn’t particularly nervous around them, he always thought that if he handled them too roughly, they’d snap in two. 

 

_Hugh’s son.  I’m Hugh’s son, first-born alpha… but no, that would have been Elraed… and Elraed is dead… so who does that make me?_

 

Enough.  He didn’t have time for this; they needed to go, and quickly.  John shoved every doubt and worry down deep, and turned his attentions to the horse.

 

The horse watched John warily, and he approached, equally wary.  But it didn’t seem overly flustered, and John rested his hand on the horse’s shoulder, expecting it to start whinnying and scurrying away at any moment.

 

Instead, the horse looked at him, and then at Sherlock, who was pulling himself up to his feet.

 

“Remondin’s not going to _bite_ you,” said Sherlock, a bit breathy and impatient.  He frowned.  “I might, though.”

 

“Other way ‘round,” said John mildly, but the thought of it still made his voice go husky, and his stomach curled pleasantly, too.  He glanced at the horse, who looked at him with a placid, almost bored expression.  “Do you know this horse?”

 

“Yes,” said Sherlock, and paused, as if he wanted to say something else, and couldn’t decide whether or not he should.  “It means protector.  Remondin, I mean.”

 

“Good horse for us, then,” said John, glancing back up at the roof.  He almost expected to see Moriarty crash through after them, but the sky was clear and quiet.  He reached out to Sherlock.  “Come on, I’ll help you up.”

 

Sherlock reached for his hand, and then pulled back at the last moment.  “I can get up on my own,” said Sherlock stiffly, but John wanted to put his hands on Sherlock more than he cared for Sherlock’s pride – and it seemed, the way that Sherlock trembled when John touched his waist, that Sherlock wanted the same thing.  He lifted Sherlock up, but it was awkward: Sherlock didn’t ride astride, but kept his knees together, and he leaned up against the horse’s neck, hugging his chest to its mane.  “You’ll have to ride behind me, to keep me up.”

 

“That’s not all I’m keeping up,” muttered John to himself, and his ears went hot.  “Let me lead you both out first.”

 

“To the left,” mumbled Sherlock into Remondin’s mane.  “There’s a tunnel, it’ll take us out of the stables completely, and it’s only a short dash to the forest.”

 

John froze.  “We can’t go into the _forest_.”

 

“Well, we can hardly go to my father’s house!” snapped Sherlock.  “Where do you think Moriarty will look first?”

 

John wanted to argue.  “We don’t have time for this, Sherlock – he’ll have already raised the alarm.”

 

“Which is why you shouldn’t be arguing with me, and just _go_!”

 

“I’m not the one arguing!”

 

The horse nickered, and John jumped back, nervous.  “Fine.  _Fine_.  Have it your way.  Let’s hope we aren’t eaten by _bears_.”

 

“There aren’t bears in the forest.”

 

“Just… _shut up_ , all right?”

 

John led the horse, and Sherlock on it, down the dark tunnel under the stables.  If it’d been daylight, he would have been able to see the end of it, but in the dark of night, all he could see was dark and slightly less dark.  The air smelled of the dank scent of wet earth, wetter stone, and even wetter wool, which was surely from Sherlock.  John’s own clothes were damp where Sherlock had pressed against him; John could still smell the green, leafy scent of him, and he tried to put it out of his mind. 

 

And then they were out, and John stood in the open air, the cold bite of the night digging into his skin.  John took a deep breath, and while he could still smell Sherlock, he could smell everything else, too, like the first fresh breath of clean air after a fresh rain.

 

The night was strangely silent, which only served to make John more cautious.  Shouldn’t Moriarty have sounded the alarm?  Why couldn’t he even hear them fighting?  But the fields were silent; the guardsmen and knights had long since succumbed to their drink, and had taken themselves off to bed.  The cold night air did much to wake John from the strange fog he’d been in; his breath came quicker now, and with it, a sudden sharp sense of pain in his chest.

 

_Elraed, the look on his face, the bubble of blood in his mouth_ ….

 

John tried the shake the image from his mind, and concentrated on walking as quickly and quietly away from the Manor House as possible.  He could hear the soft huffing sounds from the horse, and the quiet whimpers from Sherlock, who surely felt every lumbering step the beast made in their escape.

 

The forest was still a dark shadow on the horizon when John finally scrambled up on the horse behind Sherlock, who was hot and damp and trembling.  He settled himself astride the horse, and put his arms around Sherlock to take hold of the mane.  Sherlock went tense, and shied away from him, pressing himself into the horse even further.

 

John’s heart hurt curiously in his chest.  He tried to breathe, and found it difficult.  It didn’t matter.  It _didn’t_ , and at any rate, he had to reach for the horse’s long mane if he had any hope of holding on.

 

It was when he reached for the mane that Sherlock’s hand darted out and grasped John’s wrist, and pressed it to his nose to breathe the scent of John’s skin in deeply.  Sherlock’s body trembled and shook, before he let out a deep sigh and relaxed.  John’s heart skipped, and he wondered if it would be all right between them now – and the trembling began again in earnest.

 

“Hold tight,” said Sherlock.  John wasn’t sure what Sherlock meant – if he wanted John to hold tight to the horse, or hold tight to Sherlock, or if it was just Sherlock reminding himself to hold himself close.  Whichever way, John did, and Sherlock clicked his tongue, and the horse sprang forward into the trees, and the Manor House and stars above it were lost from view.

 

*

 

Remondin smelled like home.

 

It wasn’t true, of course – Remondin smelled like a horse in a stables, sweat and wet hay and stalls that hadn’t been properly washed out in weeks, if not years. 

 

But Remondin had been born in the small stables behind the Holmes house, where his mother, the old nag Bits, lived, and Sherlock had watched the colt take his first wobbly steps, eat his first apple, and jump his first fence.  That had been years before, when his own sorrow over his mother’s death had been fresh even as the first flowers grew over her grave in the cemetery.

 

Sherlock pressed his nose into Remondin’s mane, and breathed in the rich horsey scent of him. The thick hair was scratchy and rough against overly-sensitized skin, but somehow that was all right.  Sherlock wanted something rough, something that was more abrasive than soft.  Something that didn’t remind him of the feather-touch lightness of Moriarty’s fingers brushing over….

 

No.   _No_. 

 

Sherlock breathed deep, and burrowed further into Remondin, felt the warm muscles moving under the animal’s skin, the hopping gait that made it difficult to stay seated.  Why had he thought sitting side-saddle was a good idea?  It had been all right before, when Remondin was moving so slowly that Sherlock had wanted to fall asleep with the slow rocking, but now that they were moving faster, Sherlock had to hold tight just to keep from sliding down.

 

Well. He didn’t _have_ to hold tight.  The warm weight of John behind him, his arms on either side, could have helped Sherlock stay up, if Sherlock had been willing to relax into them.  Into him.  And it was tempting, too – the night air was chilled with damp and even if Remondin was familiar, he still smelled a great deal of _horse_ and John was warm and breathing and smelled almost exactly right.

 

Almost.  It was the _almost_ that was the trouble.  Since the moment that John had crashed into Moriarty’s bedchamber, Sherlock had been perfectly aware of his presence, if not by scent than by his own body’s reaction to him, the need he’d felt to be near John, to feel John’s hands on his skin, to have John’s breath on his cheeks. 

 

Sherlock had wanted John from the moment he’d crashed into the room, as if Moriarty dropping him to the floor had been enough to shake him to his senses.  As if Moriarty’s scenting of Sherlock had meant nothing. 

 

Scenting, scenting, scenting…Sherlock closed his eyes and thought.  Scenting was the first step in the bonding process, it was meant to link two people together so that their brains would only respond to the other’s scent – or so the priests said.  Scenting, followed by actual bonding through sexual congress.  In olden days, scenting had occurred at the time of bonding, but now public scenting was the norm, so that there would be no doubt of a couple’s intention to bond.  Sometimes hours would go between scenting and bonding, but because scenting left a sort of imprint in the mind, there was little chance that either party would be attracted to anyone other than their intended.

 

Or maybe that was more because no one ever really _tried_.  The moment John scented Sherlock, he should have been unable to respond to any other omega the same way he did to his own.  The same should have been true for Sherlock and any other alpha, but….

 

He’d wanted.  Oh, Christ, how he’d _wanted_ Moriarty to scent him, to lick him, to reach under his shirt and tweak his nipples and down into his leggings and touch him _everywhere_ , and even as his brain screamed and resisted, his body still _wanted_ to let Moriarty do all those things to him, his body was aching and hot and needy and desperate, and Sherlock’s brain was horrified.

 

_Sherlock_ was horrified.  It wasn’t quite the same thing. 

 

And now it was all a mess: John might have smelled familiar, there was that small voice in the back of his head trying to reassure him that seeking comfort in John was perfectly all right, but Sherlock didn’t trust it anymore.  His body had been telling him the same thing about Moriarty, and now his body was wrapped around a horse, and Sherlock wanted to scrub away every last memory of soft touches and warm breath on the back of his neck.

 

Remondin jumped over a fallen tree; Sherlock gripped tight to his mane as John, behind him, gripped tight as well, pressing Sherlock’s body into Remondin.  Sherlock held his breath, and willed himself not to push back.  He would _not_ give into his stupid, traitorous body which obviously didn’t know one alpha from the next.  He breathed in the scent of horse and felt his mind calm a little bit; felt the fire in his blood burn a little less brightly.  That was better.  Sherlock turned his face into the horse’s mane, and kept breathing him in.

 

Remondin jumped over another fallen tree, and John pressed further into Sherlock, a solid, uncompromising warm weight against Sherlock’s back.  Sherlock bit his lip and screwed his eyes shut, willed his body to _ignore it, ignore it, it’s not important_. 

 

John shifted against him; John’s face, Sherlock thought, moving tight against Sherlock’s shoulder blades.  It couldn’t have been comfortable; Sherlock’s shirt was damp and thin and… oh.  He was shivering. 

 

“We should stop,” said John, breaking the silence, and Sherlock opened his eyes, cautiously, to look around.

 

“Not yet.  We’re not there.”

 

John’s laugh was hollow and not amused in the slightest.  “We’re in the middle of the sodding forest, how much more _not there_ can we be?”

 

“Just wait,” said Sherlock impatiently, unhappily, and he pressed his nose back into Remondin’s mane.

 

“Sodding….” mumbled John, but didn’t continue.  He pressed his face harder against Sherlock’s shirt.  Sherlock, in turn, burrowed deeper into Remondin’s mane, and after a moment, John pulled away.  Not enough to break contact, but enough that Sherlock didn’t feel the pressure of him anymore, and in a way, that was worse than before.

 

Sherlock’s heart pounded in his chest.  John’s hand wasn’t that far from his own – he’d seen it, in his brief glimpse when he’d checked their location in the forest.  If he moved his hand down, just a bit, he’d be able to touch John’s fingers.   Brush up against them.  It would be comfort, almost.  His skin ached for someone to touch him, ached for hands to press fingerprints all over, to hold him and stretch him out, to massage his muscles and… if he could just touch John’s hand, maybe that would quell the desire, a little.  Maybe his skin could breathe a sigh of relief and just _be_ for a few minutes.

 

Maybe, just for a little.  Probably not.  It was everything Sherlock could do not to inch his hand down, and he tightened his grip on the mane to remind himself.

 

Remondin let out an annoyed huff, but kept going.

 

The sound changed around them, and Sherlock let out a shuddering, relieved sigh.  “We’re here,” he said, before he even opened his eyes.  He felt John shift behind him, again, and this time, John slid off the horse entirely, leaving Sherlock’s back exposed to the night air.  The rush of cold should have felt good on his fevered skin, but instead it left Sherlock feeling more alone than before.

 

“What the—?” began John, confused.  “Who lives here?”

 

“No one,” said Sherlock.  He opened his eyes, not so much to check that he was still correct, but John sounded further away than he ought to have, and the supposed distance made him more nervous than he thought it would have done.  Sure enough, there was John, several steps away from Remondin, but still holding onto the bridle.  His knuckles were white with tension, and he held himself stiffly.  Sherlock wondered how often John had ridden a horse.  “Not that I’ve ever seen, anyway.”

 

They were exactly where Sherlock thought they were: the little clearing in the forest that he’d found as a child, which had become his refuge as the years passed.  It would have taken three hours to walk to it – he doubted they’d been riding more than an hour’s time.  Maybe less.  It was hard to tell, without a clear look at the moon above, and Sherlock’s own sense of time was dangerously off kilter. 

 

The clearing was not much larger than the size of his father’s house, but large enough for a fire pit in the center, and the little hut off to the side, built up against one of the largest trees Sherlock had ever seen.  Sherlock had measured, when he’d been small, and it was so thick at its base that he needed four arm lengths to wrap himself around it, and that was without figuring in the hut. 

 

“You’ve been here before?”

 

Sherlock paused.  “I don’t like housework.”

 

John let out a dry laugh, and shook his head.  “You skived off housework and went wandering in the forest, didn’t you?”

 

“I didn’t wander.  I _explored_.  There’s a lot of forest no one goes to, except for me.”

 

“And this?”  John indicated the little hut, small and dilapidated, and looking as if it would fall down if the tree suddenly disappeared.  It probably would, but then, it had looked like that when Sherlock had discovered it at the age of eight, and it would probably look like that when he died of old age.  Assuming Moriarty let him live that long.

 

“I don’t know, it’s always been there.  There’s blankets and things inside.”  Sherlock felt cross; he felt even crosser when John dropped the bridle and went to the hut, pushing the leather curtain that marked the doorway aside.  “Don’t you _trust_ me?”

 

John disappeared into the hut, and Sherlock pressed his nose into Remondin’s mane again, squeezing his eyes tightly.

 

Remondin shuddered under him.  Sherlock worked his fingers through the mane, and wondered if he could just stay on the horse for the rest of his estrus.  The horse didn’t seem to care what he smelled like – whether it was himself, or Moriarty, or John, or something else entirely.  Whereas John… John couldn’t wait to be rid of him.  John had been off the horse the moment they’d arrived, had left him alone in the clearing, had disappeared into the hut because he was sick of staring at him, sick of the reminder that Sherlock had been with another alpha, despite their scenting….

 

The touch on his elbow startled Sherlock so much that he fell right off the other side of the horse.  He landed on his feet, hands still tangled in Remondin’s mane, and his eyes flew open to stare across Remondin’s back at John, standing wide-eyed on the other side, one hand still poised where he’d reached for Sherlock’s arm.

 

“ _What_?” snapped Sherlock, startled and unsettled and finding standing to be only possible if Remondin remained where he was.  His legs shook under him, and his entire body felt molten and flimsy.

 

John’s eyes narrowed.  “You’re _cold_ , and you said there were blankets inside.”

 

Sherlock snorted.  “ _Cold_ is not my problem.”

 

“You’ve been shivering and your shirt is soaked.”

 

“Doesn’t mean I’m cold, or did you miss the part where I’m meant to be going into estrus?”

 

John’s eyes narrowed.  “I’m just trying…”

 

“Well, stop, you’re terrible at it,” said Sherlock, and Remondin, either tired of the argument or at least tired of standing still, began to walk away.  Sherlock was able to unlock his fingers from the horse’s mane in time not to be dragged with him, but his legs, still wobbly, wouldn’t hold him up, and he fell to the ground in a heap, sending up the faint scent of damp earth and fallen leaves.  “Blast,” he said, mournfully, unable to think of a single other thing to say.

 

John was clearly visible now; he held one of the blankets in his hand.  “I just…”  He took a breath, and walked around behind Sherlock, opening the blanket to rest it on his shoulders.  “Here, you’re cold.”

 

For a moment, when John settled the blanket on Sherlock’s shoulders, he closed his eyes, feeling the dim warmth in the wool, the scent of spring rain and mildew and somewhere behind it, the soothing scent of John himself.  Sherlock leaned backwards, almost instinctively, and reached up to grasp the edge of the blanket, his mind already murmuring, _Yes yes yes yes_.

 

Breath on the back of his neck.  “There now,” said John, said Moriarty, and Sherlock sprang away from the blanket, his heart pounding and his skin aching to be touched.

 

He stared at John, who was still holding the blanket in a Sherlock-shape above the ground.  John looked utterly shocked, and then he closed his mouth into a thin line, and breathed in through his nose.

 

“Right,” he said.  “Fine.  That’s just… fine, Sherlock, it’s _fine_.”

 

“John,” said Sherlock, already miserable, and hearing the hurt in John’s voice made it so much worse.

 

John stood up, shaking.  “I won’t touch you, then.  If that’s not what you want.  There’s a bed in the hut, you can have it, I’ll stay out here in case Moriarty comes looking for you.”   He strode past Sherlock, and paused next to him, before he dropped the blanket down.   “You’ll want that – I can’t start a fire, they might see the smoke.”

 

John’s fists were clenching and unclenching in turn; when he moved toward Remondin, Sherlock reached out and managed to grab his sleeve.

 

“Wait,” he said, choking on the word, and he closed his eyes and swallowed.  John stilled, and waited.

 

“I mean,” said Sherlock, and he took a breath, and felt his brain shift a little. 

 

“Unless you want that,” said John, his voice so cold that Sherlock shivered.  “Moriarty to find you.”

 

“No,” whispered Sherlock.

 

“He could finish the job he started,” said John grimly, and Sherlock let go of him so abruptly that he fell back on the ground.

 

“I don’t want Moriarty to bond me!” he said, heat turning into anger, and pulled his knees up under his chin, wrapping his arms around his legs.  “And you can just bugger off if you think I do.”

 

John rounded on him.  “You – you think this is about _you_?” John spluttered.  “ _He killed my brother_ in trying to _kill me_.  All he did to _you_ was feel you up a bit.  Elraed is _dead_.  Do you understand what that means?  He’s _dead_ , and the only reason he was there was because I needed his help to rescue _you_ , and Moriarty was trying to kill _me_ , not him.  And now I’ve got to go back to the village and tell my father that Elraed is dead, and I can’t even do that until morning because I’ve got to keep _you_ safe.”

 

Sherlock felt like his entire body was melting into the ground.  John was shouting – at _him_ , and Sherlock’s body was twisted and aching and all he wanted was to curl up into the smallest ball possible.

 

“It’s my fault,” he said dully.  “That Elraed was killed.”

 

“What?  No!”  John stopped pacing at least, but only to stare at Sherlock incredulously.  “Why would you think that?”

 

“If he came to rescue me—”

 

“That was _me_ who came to rescue you, you dolt.  _He_ just came to let me into the house.  He was supposed to go _home_ after that.” John ran his hand through his hair, and Sherlock felt the bubble of hysteria – or maybe it was an overflow of desire – in his gut.  “He was there because _I_ needed him.  I should have forced him to leave.  I should have shoved him back out the door and locked it so he couldn’t come back in.  I shouldn’t have even let him come in the first place, he could have told me how to get in the front, then maybe—”

 

“Then you’d be dead, not him!  Bad enough that it’s my fault I was there in the first place, worse if I have your death on my head.”  The hysteria was making his voice shake. 

 

“Your fault,” repeated John.  “ _Your fault_ that you were there?  What, you told Moriarty to come and claim you on our bonding night?  Give him a gold-edged invitation, did you?  Or did you just indicate that I wouldn’t care if he had you first?”

 

“No,” mumbled Sherlock, but John sucked in a breath so sharp that Sherlock’s chest hurt to hear it.  When he peeked up to see John’s pale face, his stomach fell even further.

 

John had looked lost and pained and upset before, when it was just Elraed.  But now – he looked as if the entire world had come grinding to a halt.

 

“Is that what you wanted, Sherlock?  Do you… do you _want_ Moriarty as your alpha?”

 

“No!” whispered Sherlock, but John was already too far gone to hear him, his eyes wild and full of something that Sherlock might have called _lust,_ if only for the way it frightened him. 

 

“Would you like me to put you back up on the horse and send you back to the Manor House?  There might be time to save all our necks if you let him fuck you, maybe he’s the forgiving type.  Because otherwise I don’t think either of us can go home again.  If my father doesn’t kill me for losing Elraed, Moriarty’s sure to do it for stealing you away.”

 

“You can’t steal what you already possess,” said Sherlock to his knees.

 

“ _Well, I don’t possess you, do I_?” shouted John.  “You let Moriarty do that _first_!”

 

Sherlock wanted to scream.  “I was _wrong_ , all right?  I went to the Manor House and I looked in all his corners, and he’d talk to me and tell me how to read the stars at night and he was _kind_ to me.  And I thought – I don’t know what I thought, I never _liked_ him, but he’s the _earl_ , I had to show him some level of respect and courtesy, didn’t I?  I didn’t think it was _flirting_ , I never meant to _flirt_ with him.  I never meant to make him think I _wanted_ him.  He just… don’t you think I’m sorry for it now?  I should have stayed at home, I should have stayed away from the Manor House, I should have kept to my place.  That’s why it’s my fault, I let him think – I let him think he could _have_ me, I let him think I _wanted_ him to have me.  It’s my fault, John.  No matter what you say – if I hadn’t gone to the Manor House in the first place with my father, he would never have seen me, he would never have wanted me, and Elraed wouldn’t have died for me.  _My_ fault, not yours.”

 

The forest was quiet.  Sherlock’s breath was hot in the little cave created by his legs and torso; he could feel the cold air around him, hear the far-off sounds of crickets and owls searching through the night. 

 

And then footsteps.  John, moving through the grass, the rustle of his feet on the dirt.  For a moment, Sherlock couldn’t decide if John was moving toward or away from him.  He didn’t know for certain until he felt the blanket around his shoulders, and he looked up into John’s face, streaked with dirt and tears.

 

“You were only being you,” said John quietly.  “Going to the Manor House, instead of staying at home and learning how to sew.  You were… just being you.  You wouldn’t be you if you’d learned how to knit.”

 

Sherlock swallowed hard.  “You can’t forgive me, John.”

 

“Do you want Moriarty?  At all, even a little?”

 

“No!”

 

“Then there’s nothing to forgive,” said John firmly.  “Moriarty claiming you – that wasn’t your fault.”

 

“Elraed _died_ because of me.”

 

John closed his eyes, his face screwing up in pain, and Sherlock cursed himself, and began to edge away.  John, however, held him fast.  “Don’t,” he said roughly, and then took a deep breath.  “You keep pulling me in and then pushing me away.”

 

Sherlock made a low, frustrated growl.  “Moriarty… he….”

 

John’s grip grew tighter.  “Did he scent you?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Did you scent him?”

 

“I wanted to,” Sherlock blurted out.  “He was standing behind me, and touching, and… I could feel him, and I kept screaming in my head, I knew he wasn’t you, but… it was like my body didn’t _care_ , and he didn’t even want me to scent him.  He wasn’t going to let me, because he said if I did, then I’d be his, and he didn’t actually _want_ me.  But if I scented him – I don’t know, I can’t explain it, if I’d scented him, then—”

 

“Then you would have wanted him, too,” said John quietly.  “And you wouldn’t have fought, and it would have been all right, because it wouldn’t have been against your will.”

 

Sherlock relaxed a little.  “Yes.  I didn’t want him, exactly, but I wanted not to not want him.  It doesn’t make any sense.”

 

John nodded once, and took a breath before reaching out his arm.  “Scent me.”

 

Sherlock stared at him.

 

“Go on,” urged John.  “You did it earlier, on Remondin.  And you’ve been pushing me away ever since, because you can’t trust your senses that it’s me.  So… remind yourself.  Scent me.”

 

“I….”

 

“Sherlock,” said John, and his voice nearly broke.  “Please.  I… I’ll never ask for anything from you again, I swear.  I’m sorry.  But… please, scent me.  _Try_.”

 

The moonlight was thin, but the tree cover was light enough that Sherlock could just make out John’s face.  He saw the openness there, the same sort of bald longing that he felt himself.  John’s hand, outstretched to him, steady and sure – the way his other hand clenched tightly by his side – the rough note in his voice, the evenness of his tone belying his feelings.  There was something John wasn’t saying – Sherlock could tell, in the way he bit his lip, in the dark shadows under his eyes.  John might have needed Sherlock, more than Sherlock needed him – but _why_ , Sherlock couldn’t determine.

 

The splatter on John’s sleeve, as he stretched his arm out to Sherlock.  It was too dark to see the color, but Sherlock had no doubt about its origin, the way it was so fresh it was still damp on John’s clothes.  Elraed’s blood, between them.

 

It didn’t matter what John said – Elraed had died so that John could live, so that John could live for _Sherlock_ , and if Sherlock did not accept John… then Elraed would have died for nothing.

 

Sherlock reached out, tentatively, and touched John’s fingers. They were cool, compared to his own, but he felt the roughness to them, the thick calluses and the places where the skin caught against Sherlock’s. 

 

A flash – Moriarty’s fingers, strangely rougher than they should have been – but smooth compared to John’s even so, and Sherlock pressed his hand up against John’s, felt the rough skin beneath his palm, and laughed softly.

 

“His skin wasn’t as soft as it should have been,” said Sherlock, wonderingly, tracing John’s hand with his fingers.

 

“Don’t talk about him,” said John, a bit gruff. 

 

Sherlock circled John’s wrist, and then ran his hands up John’s sleeve, careful to avoid the drops of blood.  He doubted John had missed them, but he still didn’t want to call his attention to them.  All the same, he felt the tremor go through John’s body as his fingers went by the spots; the way John swallowed hard, and closed his eyes just a bit too long to be a natural blink. 

 

Sherlock’s heart twisted, but he kept his touch light, kept his hand moving, and reached John’s shoulder, then his neck, then his head, and Sherlock ran his fingers along John’s face, up one side and across his forehead, down the other and around his nose and mouth, never quite touching.  Sherlock ran his hand around John’s ear, the hard curve of it, and briefly dipped one finger into the cavity there.  John moved away, not quite a jerk, but there wasn’t much doubt he didn’t like the intrusion.

 

“Tickles,” he said, with a smile.

 

The smile was nice – and it brightened John’s face for perhaps the first time since the party.  That was probably why when Sherlock went back, he slid his finger into John’s ear a second time, just to see, and John moved away again, smiling again, and better still – this time, he chuckled, a real chuckle, instead of the darkly frightening laugh he’d made before.

 

“Stop that,” he said, and there was a flush in his cheeks that hadn’t been there before.  It matched the flush Sherlock could feel under his skin. He moved, suddenly, so that he knelt in front of John, feeling unnaturally and suddenly brave. 

 

It was probably that bravery that convinced John to reach out for Sherlock’s hair.  The flowers were still lodged in the curls, some of them crushed, but that only intensified the scent.  Sherlock had forgotten them, but when John reached to run his fingers through the sweaty black curls, Sherlock sucked in a breath and shied away, and John’s fingers caught on one of the blooms, and it pulled at his scalp.  It didn’t hurt, but it was enough that he cried out with remembered pain.

 

The forest went still again.  Sherlock shivered, and tried to breathe, and didn’t look at John, whose arm was still outstretched where he’d reached for Sherlock’s hair.  His skin was burning – his blood was surging through him, and he could feel the cold air on the back of his neck, exactly as if Moriarty was still there, breathing and whispering obscenities in his ears.  He stole a look at John, and it was like looking into an icy stream in the middle of summer, and knowing that going back would feel far better than staying on land.

 

It was John.  _It was John_.  And John was safe.

 

“I’m all right,” said Sherlock quickly, his eyes closed tight.  He took a deep, determined breath.  “I’m all right.  You’re not him.  I _know_ that.”

 

Sherlock held his breath and sat back up.  John watched him, so completely still, Sherlock wasn’t sure that he was even still breathing.

 

It was John, he told himself.  _John_ , and John was safe.

 

John was _his_.

 

And so Sherlock stopped thinking, and leaned in to brush his lips and nose along the same path his fingers had already taken.

 

The warmth from John’s skin surprised him, more than anything else.  The air was cool, but Sherlock himself felt so warm, he’d expected John to be cool in comparison.  John wasn’t as warm as he was, not then, but he was still _warm_ , and the warmth might have been the scent alone.  Sour and sweet, the faint hint of ash…Sherlock breathed it in, closing his eyes and resting his head on John’s shoulder as he did.

 

John remained still under him, barely breathing himself.  Sherlock pressed his nose to John’s neck as the remembered scent from the church steps strengthened.  Sherlock’s head spun with it, faster and faster, and his body thrummed and hummed as he inched closer to his mate, spurred by desire and the feeling of safety that cloaked them like a blanket.

 

“Better?” whispered John, and Sherlock felt how the word vibrated in his throat, the way he struggled to swallow, the way John trembled with the effort of staying still.

 

“Not yet,” breathed Sherlock, and pulled away long enough to move his head down to John’s neck.  John tipped his head back, allowing him access, and Sherlock nuzzled him there, mouthing the skin, pushing at John’s tunic and shirt.  His mouth closed over John’s pulse, and for a brief moment, considered reversing the bonding process: to bite John there, try to mark him.  It wouldn’t work – he didn’t _think_ – but the idea that he could try sent a frisson of excitement through him, and he pulled up, reluctantly.  He nuzzled John’s cheek, his hairline, his nose, his temple; he brushed his lips over John’s eyes and lashes, rubbed his cheek on John’s forehead, worked his way down the other side, and then pressed his forehead against John’s.

 

John’s breaths were even, steady, and his shoulders rose and fell with each one.  His eyes were closed; he was almost in a trance, and Sherlock could almost taste his breath, the ale he’d drunk at the party hours before.  Sherlock could still feel the headiness from the wine Moriarty had given him, the way he felt as if he were spinning like a top, out of control, about to topple.

 

He almost liked the feeling. 

 

“Better,” he said, feeling almost better for simply saying it.  John’s scent was lodged in him now; he could feel it wrapping tendrils of comfort around his mind, drawing him closer, and better still – Sherlock _wanted_ to be closer, wanted to settle himself on John’s lap and feel John’s arms surround him. 

 

“Good,” said John, and shifted on the ground, rearranging himself.  For a moment, Sherlock thought he’d voiced his desires aloud.  “Can I kiss you?”

 

Sherlock held his breath.  “I… yes?”

 

It only took a slight turn of John’s head, and then their lips were touching.  Softly, gently, at first, and then with increasing pressure as John leaned into the kiss.  Sherlock didn’t move, wasn’t sure he _could_ move.  When John’s hand reached up and touched his cheek, fingers light and trembling, Sherlock gasped with the sudden frisson of pleasure that went through him, and John took it as an invitation to deepen the kiss.

 

And that, Sherlock didn’t mind so much, either.  John’s hands cupped his cheeks, his tongue brushed strokes inside Sherlock’s mouth, and he kept pushing forward until Sherlock was leaning so far behind that he lost his balance entirely and fell to the ground, with John on top of him.

 

“Ow,” said Sherlock, staring up at the star-filled sky. _Bears don’t live in the forest,_ he’d told John, but Sherlock could see them peeking through the leaves of the trees overhead, Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, Ophiuchus reaching for Serpens….

 

Sherlock sucked in a breath and screwed his eyes shut, as Moriarty’s voice flooded his memory.  _I’ll take  you up to the tower, and I can fuck you under the stars_.

 

“I hurt you,” said John, worried.

 

“No, only… can we go inside?”  Sherlock’s voice trembled. 

 

John gave him a long look before nodding.  He pushed off of Sherlock, and the loss of contact made Sherlock inhale sharply.  His skin tingled where John had pressed up against it, and the air felt cold and clammy and deeply uncomfortable. 

 

“I’m going to help you up,” John said, enunciating every word clearly, and Sherlock nodded eagerly, reaching for him without any sort of hesitation.  When John put his arms around him, and eased him up, Sherlock held tightly, even as he tried to stand on his own.  _Wanting_ John was one thing… _needing_ him was quite another.

 

All the same… being this close to John was particularly dizzying.

 

“You smell good,” mumbled Sherlock as they moved toward the house.

 

“Do I?”  John sounded a bit hopeful, and Sherlock nuzzled into the soft bit of flesh under his armpit.

 

“Like sugar and yeast and something thicker, almost sour.  But in a good way, it makes me hungry.”

 

John was quiet for a moment.  Sherlock didn’t need to ask what he was thinking, especially once he answered.  “That’s the alehouse, I think.”

 

“No,” said Sherlock firmly.  “You.”

 

John pushed the curtains at the door aside, and led them in.  The house was even smaller inside than it had looked outside, with the tree curving into the available space.  There was a wide stool that served as a table, and a mattress ticking on the far wall, thick and lumpy and piled with blankets.  A shelf had been fixed to the tree, and a cup, plate, and pitcher put there, but otherwise, there was no sign of life or inhabitants.  It was exactly the way Sherlock had left it at the beginning of the summer. 

 

It was only a few steps to the bed; John eased Sherlock down onto the mattress ticking.  He started to pull away, as if he intended to leave him there alone, but Sherlock held fast to his arms, and John knelt by the ticking instead.

 

Sherlock breathed for a moment, closing his eyes and letting John’s scent curl around him, calm his thinking, set fire to his blood in ways that warmed him tip to toe and at the same time, eased the burning he felt in his limbs.

 

John leaned forward, and Sherlock’s heart pounded in his ears.  But John didn’t try to kiss him.  He rested his forehead against Sherlock’s shoulder, face turned in so that he almost nuzzled Sherlock’s neck, and breathed.  He shuddered with every breath, and Sherlock’s heart pounded hard.

 

_Now, he’ll bite now_ , he thought fuzzily, with every breath…but the bite never came. 

 

And then John – _John_ , solid, dependable, stoic, unflappable _John_ – let out a sob.  Or not even really a sob, just a soft whine in the back of his throat, and Sherlock realized that his skin wasn’t damp with sweat or humid breath, but tears.

 

He curled around John, dropped his head onto John’s shoulder, wrapped his arms around him.  He almost expected John to snap out of it, to break away with excuses of checking on Remondin.  But John kept shuddering, kept choking back sobs, kept pressing his nose into Sherlock’s skin, and they huddled together on the bed, shaking and scared and wrapped up in each other. 

 

At some point, they shifted – Sherlock never remembered when – so they were both lying on the bed, arms tightly around each other, noses pressed to each other’s skin, and Sherlock trembled just as hard as John did, with wanting and aching and wishing he could crawl inside John and just _stay_ there.  Or maybe have John crawl inside his.  He felt hollow and wet and needy and desperate: he felt like his entire body thrummed with every beat of his heart, like he was going to vibrate right off the bed, melt into the world, float into the stars above.

 

_No_ , thought Sherlock roughly, and held tightly to John, so tightly that John let out a huff.  Sherlock worked his hands under John’s shirt to touch his warm skin, and sighed when he made contact, and tried to wriggle under him. 

 

“Hey,” said John, fuzzily, but Sherlock didn’t answer.  He pressed in closer, breathed in John’s scent, and tentatively reached out with his tongue to give him a lick.  When he heard John catch his breath, he did it again.

 

“ _Sherlock_.”

 

“Mmm,” said Sherlock, and kept licking John’s neck, almost desperately. 

 

And then the world flipped, and Sherlock was on his back, with John over him, holding his hands to the mattress with a strong grip.  Sherlock’s stomach churned, his heart hammered, and for a moment, he couldn’t breathe, staring up at John.  John’s face was in shadow, but he breathed hard enough that Sherlock was, for a moment, not just desperate, but desperately afraid.

 

“What the _fuck_ do you think you’re doing?” said John, almost angry.

 

Sherlock swallowed.  John’s voice, rough and angry and low and… Sherlock couldn’t breathe.  He didn’t think he _wanted_ to breathe.  “I… please.”

 

“Please _what_?”

 

“I have to get him out of my head,” blurted out Sherlock.  “John, _please_.”

 

Sherlock struggled to sit up, but John leaned down closer, and Sherlock could tell that his eyes were closed tight.  His cheeks were streaked and wet, and he bowed his head down to Sherlock’s chest, even as he held the rest of him up, pressing down onto Sherlock’s wrists only.

 

Well. Not _only_.  Sherlock felt their groins press together, and he caught his breath as John’s hardness pushed itself against his hipbone.  Every nerve in his body stood to attention, and his head spun so madly that Sherlock couldn’t think of anything but the firm length, the thickness, the way he wanted to push himself right up into it, spread his legs, open himself up and let John inside.

 

“John,” he moaned.

 

“Oh my god,” groaned John, and sat up, letting go of Sherlock’s hands and reaching up for the ties of his shirt to fumble at them in the dark. 

 

Sherlock sat up and reached to help. 

 

“They’re _knotted_ ,” he said, frustrated.

 

“It’s meant to be symbolic.”

 

“Sodding symbolism,” complained Sherlock, and watched as John pulled the tunic over his head and dropped it on the floor.  Sherlock hands were under his shirt, against his skin, before the fabric even hit the dirt, and was working the shirt up his torso.

 

Sherlock stopped when his hands reached John’s left shoulder, and his fingers brushed over the bandages still tied there.  Sherlock’s breath caught, and he slowly pulled the shirt up, hooking it over John’s shoulder to examine the bandage more closely.

 

“It doesn’t cause you pain?”

 

“Not much,” admitted John.  “As long as I don’t lift my arm over my head.  I had some willow bark tea, it’s keeping the worst of it at bay.”

 

“I dare say my proximity is taking care of the rest,” said Sherlock thoughtfully, and for a moment, he almost felt like his old self again.  “You can clearly use the arm, though – he must not have done too much damage.”

 

“No,” agreed John, his voice a bit rough.  Sherlock didn’t need to ask why.

 

Sherlock’s fingers were soft on the bandage.  He couldn’t take his eyes from it, or his hands, examining every fold of the cloth, the heat from the skin around the edges, the ties that kept it together.  He wondered what the wound looked like – had the blood already coagulated into a scab, and what shape would the scar take?  Somehow, concentrating on the bandage and the wound beneath was calming; it let him step out of his own body for a moment, and forget the way his skin was sparking, the way he could feel the blood rushing.  Forget the way he felt slippery between his legs, desperate for John to strip him bare and….

 

When Sherlock’s fingers brushed John’s skin, John’s pulse jumped, and he wondered if John felt the same sort of disconnect, the same drive that Sherlock himself felt. 

 

“In the morning,” said John thickly.  “You can look at it then – your father wanted to check on it anyway.”

 

Sherlock glanced up at him.  Any other time, he would have been delighted at the prospect of watching his father tend a wound.  But now….  “Let’s not talk about my father now.”

 

Sherlock growled a little bit, and pulled John’s shirt the rest of the way over his head.  John landed on the mattress beside him, their legs tangled, but that was all right; that kept Sherlock grounded, kept him from floating up into the clouds, and at the same time, he could _breathe_. 

 

He nuzzled John’s skin, brushed his mouth and nose along John’s exposed arms, his shoulder, his chest.  He reached out with his tongue and flicked John’s nipples, more as an experiment than actual foreplay, and when John sucked in a breath, kept moving, cataloguing the information but continuing the exploration.  When it became too difficult to explore the folded places – such as John’s waist, or his armpits – he grumbled and mumbled and made annoyed little noises until John obediently moved to allow him access.

 

He nuzzled and kissed and licked, and felt John moving next to him in turn, felt his own skin touched and caressed, John’s nose pressing in beside him.  Somewhere along the way, he felt his shirt being lifted, drawn away from his body, and the movement made him stiffen for just a moment before John whispered to him, “It’s all right, shhh, now, love, it’s me,” and reassured, Sherlock let him peel the wet fabric away from his overheated skin.  The cold air felt delicious, made Sherlock suck in his breath and shudder and burrow closer to John.

 

He almost didn’t notice when John’s hands rested on his waist, though he did when they hooked themselves under the waistband of his leggings, and start to draw them down.  Sherlock’s entire body pulsed, as if he was one enormous heartbeat, and he unconsciously lifted his hips to let John pull the leggings down.

 

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” whispered John, and kissed him sloppily, hungry and desperate, and Sherlock thought dimly that at least whatever he was feeling, John felt it too. 

 

“Take them off,” gasped Sherlock, his hands ineffectual against John’s leggings.  How the hell had John managed?  God, Sherlock didn’t have the wherewithal to do anything but lie there and beg, much less undress anyone.

 

“I know, I know,” gasped John, and pulled away.  Sherlock’s entire body went cold and hot and desperate at the loss of contact and he cried out, reaching for John.  “Hold on, _wait_ , I can’t get them off my ankles—”

 

“I don’t _care_ about your ankles,” gasped Sherlock. 

 

“Oh, sod it all,” groaned John, and reached for him to turn him over on the mattress.

 

The moment Sherlock felt John press up against his back, it all came rushing back.

 

_You’ll remember this the rest of your life_ , Moriarty whispered in his ear.  _Whatever your alpha does, I’ll have done it first_.

 

And Sherlock began to shut down, scrambling on the bed to get away from John, his breath gone from labored to utterly _desperate_.

 

He wasn’t sure how long he’d been clawing at the wall when he realized that he couldn’t feel anyone at his back anymore; the only sound he could hear, apart from the whine in his throat, was John’s thin breathing behind him.

 

“I’ll kill him for you.”

 

Sherlock screwed his eyes tightly.  “No,” he said, surprised to hear how utterly wrecked his voice sounded.  “He’s… not important enough.”

 

“Oh, I think killing him is very important,” said John, so low and cold that Sherlock’s heart hurt.  He pushed away from the wall and turned back to face John.  John knelt on the bed, mostly in shadow, but that was better, somehow. 

 

“Just… like this,” said Sherlock, and he slid down on the bed again, on his back, with his legs on either side of John.  Opening his legs sent a rush of scent into the air – Sherlock’s scent, the wetness that had been slowly leaking out of him, coating his thighs, rich and fresh and overpowering. 

 

Sherlock could see the scent hit John, and watched as John reached to rest his hands on Sherlock’s thighs.  His fingers were warm, they slid slickly down, and Sherlock let out a soft cry as John touched his cock at the base, then the smooth skin below to his hole, already clenching and releasing in desperation.

 

“I….”  John’s voice was strangled.

 

“I just,” whispered Sherlock, and swallowed.  “I’m sorry.  I can’t, he was behind me the whole time, I keep thinking—”

 

John kept his hand where it was, but fell forward to catch Sherlock’s lips in a kiss.    “It’s all right.  This… I think this will work.”

 

He moved his lips down Sherlock’s jaw, toward his neck.  Sherlock vibrated under him, aware of John’s lips on his jaw, John’s hand between his legs.  “Oh God,” he whimpered, and threw his head back, stretching out his neck as far as it could go, reaching down to pull his knees up on either side.  If he could have slit himself straight down the middle, to let John crawl in, he would have done it without hesitating.

 

“Christ,” said John, a little shocked, his breath in stutters.  “I think… oh, _Christ_ , Sherlock, you’re so wet and wide and… I think you’re ready.  I think I could… can you?”

 

Sherlock couldn’t answer; John’s fingers, stroking and hot and the sensation of being opened burned and Sherlock was trying desperately not to grind himself down on John’s hand, because when he did, John shifted and his mouth didn’t line up with Sherlock’s neck anymore and that was not preferable. 

 

And then John’s fingers were gone, slipped out of Sherlock, but the burn remained, and Sherlock felt rather than heard the moan in his throat.  Sherlock could feel John’s hair brush against his chin and his neck as he looked down, and shifted on the mattress, muttering to himself, or maybe to both of them, quiet little soothing sounds, and then Sherlock felt it – the hard, almost flat surface pressing up against his hole, slipping up and down a bit as if trying to figure out exactly where to go.  Sherlock cried out, wriggled, tried to help.

 

“Shh, hold still,” whispered John, anxious and far away.  “Hold still, love, I can’t… it’s so wet, I need….”

 

And then it was _there_ , and _in_ , and Sherlock cried out and bore down as hard as he could as it slipped further in, and Sherlock was being split in two, and it felt _fantastic_ , and then John’s arms were around him, holding him tight, and John’s mouth was on his neck, and Sherlock felt the sobs wrack their bodies – he wasn’t sure who was crying, maybe it was both of them, and that was good, that was fine, that was perfect.

 

John’s teeth, rough against his neck, and Sherlock let his head fall to the side.

 

“ _Please_ ,” he managed to say, as John bit down, and then everything was lost and hazy and delicious as they fell into being together.

 

*

 

The birds woke Sherlock first, before the sunshine that poured into the little hut, or John’s soft snoring, though certainly those would have woken him in time.  The birds, though – they were loud, and obnoxious, and brightly singing out their songs into the early morning sunshine.  Sherlock hated them; would have liked to throw rocks at their heads, and he kept his eyes closed, because if he opened them, he’d have to begin the day in earnest.

 

Their third day in the forest, though Sherlock wasn’t sure.  Mornings and evenings ran together with heated words and stifled cries, sleepy kisses and warm cuddles. 

 

_You’re lost, but you’re lost together,_ Isobel Holmes had told him.  Sherlock had never thought much of his stepmother before, but now, he thought he understood.  A little.

 

All the same, Sherlock didn’t want the day to begin, because already he could tell the heat was over, and once they were both awake, they’d have to face whatever consequences waited them in the village.  They’d already tempted fate enough in that Moriarty hadn’t found them.  Sherlock had no doubt that he’d be waiting.

 

But there was something too important to wait – luckily, it didn’t require that Sherlock open his eyes at all, and he set to work, up in the imagined solar in his father’s imagined house, in the darkest corner amongst the spider webs.  There was plenty of space in the trunk, and when he opened it and remembered the long-ago first heat, without John, it didn’t seem quite so painful a memory anymore. 

 

All the same, it stayed, and gained the company of stars, and planets, and everything else that belonged in the night sky, and when Sherlock was done dumping it all in, without a single speck of it left to remember, he slammed the lid closed, and shoved the entire thing back into the dusty corner, and opened his eyes to the bright late summer sunshine that streamed into the hut.

 

John’s arms were wrapped around him, not too tightly, just lying there, comfortable and pleasant, and Sherlock’s head was pillowed on the soft bit of flesh under John’s shoulder.  He could feel the tickle of the bandage on John’s other shoulder where it just touched his nose, and Sherlock turned his face into John’s skin, trying to move away from the irritation. 

 

“Stay still,” mumbled John, mostly asleep, and Sherlock went still.  “Christ, you move too much when you sleep.”

 

“I do not.”

 

“You do, you kept trying to shove me out of the bed.  Had to hold your arms down to keep you from taking over the entire mattress.”

 

Sherlock closed his eyes again and wriggled against John, feeling their skin rub together.  Bits of them were sticky, other bits were slick, and just as soon as one part of him was comfortable, another part would pull and his muscles would complain about the pressure.  John grumbled a little, and tightened his arms around him.

 

“Impossible git,” muttered John, and Sherlock felt him nuzzle the top of his head.  “Go back to sleep, it’s not morning yet.”

 

“Birds,” said Sherlock, burrowing into John’s chest.

 

“All I hear is my stomach,” grumbled John.

 

“Snoring, not stomach.”

 

“Tell that to my stomach.”  John pressed a kiss into Sherlock’s hair, held him tightly for a moment, and then let go with a sigh as his body relaxed.  “Sherlock.”

 

Sherlock heard the note in John’s voice: that quiet, resigned tone that meant he was going to bring up something serious.  Sherlock didn’t want to hear it.  He pressed his nose into John’s skin.  “No.”

 

“We have to—”

 

“No, we don’t.”

 

“Sherlock.”

 

“I don’t care.  It’s the middle of the night, let’s just go back to sleep.”

 

“Birds, Sherlock,” John reminded him.

 

“I was wrong, it was crickets.”

 

“Come on, love,” said John.  “What’s the worst he can do?”

 

Sherlock opened his eyes and pushed himself up.  The daylight was bright, he had to blink rapidly before John, still lying on his back on the rough ticking mattress, came into proper focus. 

 

“How can you _say_ that?” he demanded.  “He’s the _earl_ , John.”

 

“We aren’t peasants, Sherlock.  He can’t evict us or send our families away—”

 

“But he could make it very difficult to stay.  You know that.  Do you think he’s going to forgive you denying him his due?”

 

John’s eyes narrowed; his expression went a bit dark and stern.  Sherlock held his breath for a moment, not entirely sure he liked the gruff expression on John’s face.

 

“ _You_ are not his due,” said John, his voice a bit rumbly and rough.  “And if you’re saying I should have let him _keep_ you—”

 

Sherlock felt the frisson of warm pleasure in his stomach at the sign of John’s possessiveness.  It was… surprisingly not a horrible feeling.

 

“ _No_.  But… John, you’re a fool if you think he’s going to forget this.  Or forgive it.”

 

“Whatever he’s done – whatever he’s _going_ to do – it’s only going to be worse the longer we take,” said John, and he reached up to rest his hand on Sherlock’s arm.  “It’ll be all right, love.”

 

“How can you be so confident?” demanded Sherlock.

 

John ran his hand along the side of Sherlock’s face; Sherlock felt him push back a lock of his hair.  Sherlock stared hard at him; there was something in his face again that made Sherlock think John was keeping something back.  Sherlock wanted to shake it out of him.  Naked, pressed together for warmth in the little bed, and the idea that there was something of John that Sherlock _didn’t_ know rankled, pulled at Sherlock more than the skin that protested their current position.

 

“I don’t know,” said John finally.  “But… I’m not afraid of him anymore.”

 

“Alpha confidence,” scoffed Sherlock.  “Alpha _foolishness_.”

 

John shrugged.  “Maybe.”

 

Sherlock shifted back down on the bed, so that his head was pillowed again on John’s chest.  He could hear John’s heart beating steadily – as well as the low, squealing growl from his stomach.  It didn’t sound anything like the soft snores he’d heard earlier.

 

“ _That’s_ your stomach,” said Sherlock, still not entirely satisfied, and still wanting to shake the truth out of John. 

 

John chuckled.  It rumbled pleasantly in Sherlock’s ear.

 

“Best find something to eat, then,” he said, shifting on the bed as if to get up – and then he stilled, and his hand gripped Sherlock’s arm.  “Sherlock,” he said evenly, under his breath.  “There’s food on the stool.”

 

Sherlock breathed softly.  “And water, too, isn’t there?”

 

“Yes.”  John pulled him closer.  “We… we ate, didn’t we?  I remember bread.  And water.”

 

The heat was fuzzy in Sherlock’s memory… but he thought he remembered eating something, the coolness of the water sliding down his dry throat, something sweeter and sharper that made his head swim….

 

“And ale,” said Sherlock, and he twisted in John’s arms to look at the stool.  There was a hunk of cheese and a loaf of brown bread, some dried mutton and an earthenware jar that held some kind of liquid. 

 

“Ale,” breathed John, and then he was out of the bed like a flash, reaching for his long shirt and throwing it over his head as he raced out of the hut.

 

“John!”

 

But it was too late; John was out of the door, heedless of anything, and instead of the expected clang of swords and sound of John choking on his own blood, Sherlock heard John break into a relieved cry.

 

“Vicky!”

 

Sherlock didn’t wait to hear Victor’s reply; he swung his legs off the mattress and struggled into his own shirt.  By the time he joined the brothers outside, they were hugging tightly.  Victor looked up over John’s shoulder to Sherlock, and Sherlock could see the relief on his friend’s face – and the hesitation as well.

 

“Victor,” he said, and swallowed, unable to say anything else just then. There was an odd scent to the air that Sherlock didn’t think he could blame on his nose finally being clear of John’s alpha scent, or the fresh green forest morning.  This was something richer – sweeter, more intoxicating, and Sherlock watched as Victor’s face flushed as John held him tightly. 

 

“I thought I recognized that jar,” said John, breaking away from his brother.  “How did you find us?”

 

“He’s my friend, John, of course he knew where to look,” said Sherlock quietly.  “Victor and I have come here for years.”

 

“Of course you have,” said John, and ruffled his brother’s hair.  “Brought us food and drink, too, didn’t you?”

 

Victor ducked away from John’s hand, the blush on his cheeks growing deeper.  He was shaking, a little, even though the morning was still warm.  “Elraed’s dead.”

 

John dropped his hand.  “I know.”

 

“Tell me it’s not true,” said Victor, almost insisting, and he took a step closer to John.  “I want to hear you say it.”

 

John frowned.  “He’s dead, Vicky.”

 

Victor shook his head wildly.  “Did you kill him?”

 

John sucked in a breath.  “No.  _No_.  He might have died because of me—”

 

“That’s not true,” blurted out Sherlock.

 

John glared at Sherlock.  “ _Hush_.”

 

“Don’t tell me to hush,” snapped Sherlock.  “It’s not true – you didn’t kill him.  Earl Moriarty did.”

 

Victor hadn’t taken his eyes from John.  “Earl Moriarty says it was you.  He says you ran him through with a sword because in the confusion, he was trying to mount Sherlock.”

 

Sherlock felt sick.  “No,” he whispered.

 

“That’s… _no_.  That’s not what happened!”  John pushed his hands through his hair, frantic.  “The earl was going to run me through, and Elraed got in the way….”

 

“Sir Sebastian was there, he can vouch for us,” said Sherlock, but John rounded on him again.

 

“Sherlock, _hush_.”

 

“Well, we can’t ask him, can we?” shouted Vicky.  “Because he’s dead, too.”

 

Sherlock sat down hard, almost slipping a little on the damp leaves that covered the ground. 

 

John stared at Victor, blinking and absolutely lost.  “I… what?”

 

“Victor,” said Sherlock quietly.  “Tell us what happened.  Please.”

 

Victor glanced at Sherlock, and then took a breath.  He was shaking, and flushed, and Sherlock wondered abruptly how long he’d been waiting for them in the clearing. 

 

“We thought John was waiting for you at the Holmes house, and then when you weren’t there, that he was waiting for you on the road.  That maybe Elraed was with him, to keep him company.  We waited for hours; it was nearly noon when the cart pulled in from the Manor House.  The earl was riding one of his horses, looking sour and dressed in mourning, and we all thought… well, we thought the body was yours, Sherlock.  Your father nearly fainted, until one of the guardsmen pulled back the sheet.”

 

“Elraed,” said John dully, and Victor turned back to his brother.

 

“He said he didn’t know who it was.  Mum identified him.”

 

“Oh, God,” whispered John.

 

“The earl said you’d come in together, and made your way to the bedchamber, and tried to fight the earl for Sherlock.  He said he was being gentle with you, because it was clear you were overcome with alpha lust and didn’t know what you were doing. And that Elraed had been overcome with his own alpha lust, and tried to mount Sherlock while you were fighting the earl, and you turned in your fury and killed him.  It was while the earl was trying to save Elraed that you and Sherlock made your escape, and killed Sir Sebastian and stole a horse and got away.”

 

John shook his head slowly.  “That’s… that’s not….”

 

“It’s _wrong_ ,” said Sherlock.  “It’s _ridiculous_.  How could anyone possibly believe it?”

 

“Elraed’s body was a fairly convincing proof,” snapped Victor.

 

“Where’d John get the sword?  How’d he get into the Manor House unseen – and then how would he have found his way to the bedchamber without assistance?  And _alpha lust_ – if anyone should have been overcome with alpha lust, it would have been Moriarty—”

 

“ _Earl Moriarty_ ,” said Victor.

 

“He is no earl.  Not of mine, anyway.  A true earl doesn’t need to blame boys for his own misdeeds.”

 

“He doesn’t have a reason to lie.”

 

“He has _every_ reason – and John’s the perfect foil, since he wasn’t even there to defend himself.  And what court would believe a poor ale-brewer’s son over a titled, wealthy savior to the crown?  If he did admit to killing Elraed and Sir Sebastian, he’d have to pay a fine, of course, but he’d lose the respect of the village.  Easier to blame it on John – who could not possibly have bested a trained and experienced knight in battle.”

 

Victor already looked doubtful.  “The earl said John surprised him….”

 

“John couldn’t surprise a flea,” said Sherlock.

 

“Oi,” said John.

 

“You couldn’t,” Sherlock told him.

 

“It doesn’t matter,” said John.  “I’m the reason they died, even if I’m not the one who struck the killing blow.”

 

Sherlock groaned in frustration.  “We’ve been _over_ this.”

 

“Vicky,” said John quietly.  “I didn’t kill Elraed.  He is dead because of my inaction, but you must believe – I did not want that to be the outcome.  I would give anything to have him alive.”

 

Victor nodded, his face screwed up in pain.  “Mum didn’t believe it either.  He’s been in bed this whole time, sick with sorrow – but he keeps saying he doesn’t believe it.”

 

“Not where the earl can hear, I hope,” said Sherlock.

 

“No,” agreed Victor.  “Just to us.”  He glanced at John.  “But… the village….”

 

John exhaled slowly.  “I want to see him.”

 

Victor shook his head.  “We buried him yesterday.”

 

John closed his eyes and clenched his hands into fists.

 

“John, you can’t,” said Sherlock.  “They’ll be watching his grave.  They expect you to go to it.”

 

“I have to make my amends.”

 

“ _They’ll kill you_ ,” insisted Sherlock.

 

“He’s right,” said Victor.

 

Sherlock struggled to his feet, and tried to rest his hand on John’s shoulder, but John shook it off.  “You’d leave me alone, after all that?  You think they’d just hear what happened and _believe_ you?”

 

“What other choice do I have?  This is my _home_ , Sherlock!”

 

“You can’t come home, John!” shouted Victor, his anger bursting through.  “You _can’t_.  Mum might believe you – _I_ might believe you – but if Moriarty finds out that we’re sheltering either of you, he’ll destroy us!  He’d burn down the brewery with all of us locked inside, and I don’t think anyone in the village would dare lift a finger to stop him!  Bad enough that I slipped away to bring you food and drink.  If I’m caught, that’s the end of me.  Moriarty says you killed two people in cold blood—”

 

“It’s not true!”

 

“I _know_ it’s not true.  But it doesn’t _matter_ what’s true, it only matters what people believe.  Would you kill us all just for the sake of your pride?”

 

John stared at his brother.  “You… you believe me?  You and Mum?”

 

Victor nodded sharply, his mouth in a thin line.  “You’re my brother.  I know you wouldn’t have killed Elraed.  And I know Elraed wouldn’t have laid a finger on Sherlock, out of love for you.”

 

John let out a breath.

 

“I’ll tell Mum you’re safe,” said Victor.  He reached down and picked up the rucksack that lay at his feet and slung it over his shoulder before stepping forward and grasping John’s arms.  “Go well, John.”

 

John closed his eyes and nodded.  Sherlock could see his throat bobbing with the effort of swallowing.  His hands were tight on Victor’s forearms; he seemed to be closing in around himself, even as he reached out for his brother.  “Yes,” he finally said, his voice hoarse.  “Take care of them for me, Vicky.”

 

Victor nodded and flushed again.  “I’m not the eldest alpha, John – that’s Heryeth now.”

 

John winced; Sherlock did, too, thinking of the flippant and carefree young girl suddenly with so much responsibility on her shoulders.  “Help _her_ then, Vicky.  She’ll be all right, if you help her.  And take care of the bees.”

 

Victor was already nodding, answering, _of course_ , as Sherlock’s ears perked up.  Bees?

 

“Go well, Victor,” said John.

 

Victor released John, nodded to them both, and disappeared into the trees, taking the odd sickly-sweet scent with him, and Sherlock watched him for a moment, his mind still whirring and buzzing around the thought of bees and John, and he hoped his friend made it safely home in time.

 

For a long moment, John said nothing, didn’t move, stood still in the clearing, his head bowed.  Sherlock wanted to go over and touch him, rest his hand on John’s shoulder in a show of comfort.  But he wasn’t entirely sure that John would welcome the intrusion.

 

“It’s clever,” said Sherlock finally.  “Much easier to simply pin the blame on you, than to admit he was bested by you.  Turn the entire village against you – and be rid of you that way.”

 

John didn’t say anything.  He seemed to be deep in thought.

 

“How else do earls deal with inconveniences,” added Sherlock bitterly.  “Better to have us gone, than constant reminders of his inadequacies.”

 

“I suppose that’s as good a name for me as any,” said John, as talking to himself.  “An inconvenience.  Better than others one might use, at least.”

 

Sherlock frowned.  “John?”

 

John let out a long sigh, and opened his eyes.  “Sir Sebastian was right.”

 

Sherlock blinked.  “About what?”

 

But John didn’t answer right away.  “That’s why he did it, you know.  Helping me.  He was trying to fulfill his vow.  I suppose he did, in a way.”

 

“John, you’re not making sense,” said Sherlock, annoyed. 

 

John didn’t pay any attention to him.  He looked around the small clearing, as if to assess it.  “I suppose we could reinforce the hut, make it a bit more comfortable….”

 

“London,” said Sherlock.  “We’ll go to my brother, Mycroft.  He’ll shelter us, if no one else will.”

 

John let out a despairing laugh.  “We… we can’t go to London.  It would take _weeks_ to walk there.”

 

“We have a horse,” said Sherlock stubbornly.

 

“A _stolen_ horse,” John reminded him.  “ _That_ much of Moriarty’s story is true, and all we’d need is to be caught with him and we’d be hanged, the both of us.”

 

“Well,” said Sherlock.  “You’d be hanged anyway.  And I’d rather be hanged than Moriarty’s omega, so I’m willing to take the chance.”

 

“This is what you wanted,” said John bitterly.  “To leave the village entirely.  That first day – you said as much.”

 

Sherlock swallowed.  “I didn’t want it this way.”

 

John sighed.  “I know.”  He walked to Remondin, and rested his forehead against the horse’s neck.  Remondin twisted to look at him, in a sort of horsey embrace.  Sherlock watched as John’s shoulders shook, rose and fell with deep breaths, and wondered what he could possibly say.

 

Before he could think of anything, John caught the horse’s bridle, and led him back to Sherlock.  His face was… changed, somehow.  Resolute and distant, in a way that made Sherlock unspeakably sad. “We should go, before they get impatient and start looking again.”

 

London, then.  Sherlock’s stomach turned briefly, but it was too late to voice any doubts.  Sherlock glanced back at the hut, and then nodded.  “Bees?”

 

John smiled, so very slightly that it was barely a smile at all.  “Your bonding present.  Da and I picked up the hives that morning.”

 

Sherlock held his breath for a moment, his mind already racing away with him, thinking about the pleasant buzzing and all the things he could do with the honey, the dozens of ways to cook it down into mead, the feather touch of bee-kisses on his skin.

 

All left behind, now.  Sherlock struggled to focus on the task at hand.

 

“The blankets.  And the food.”

 

“Go on, then,” said John, and Sherlock hesitated a moment before going to gather them together.  One blanket, he used to cover Remondin’s back; the other, he turned into a sort of carrying sack which he could fling over his back. 

 

“Did you believe it?” asked John while Sherlock worked.  “About Moriarty not being the true earl?”

 

Sherlock paused.  “His hands were too rough.  He wasn’t born to it.”

 

“Everyone knows that.”

 

“Yes, but…” Sherlock sat back on his haunches.  “It was something Sir Sebastian said, about Moriarty blaming others for atrocities he himself committed.  I wonder if that’s not why Moriarty killed him – he would have surely spoken out against him, and a first-hand witness can’t be dismissed just because he doesn’t have noble blood.”

 

“Knights are noble.  They’re titled, anyway.”

 

“Well, _less_ noble, by comparison.  But if Sir Sebastian witnessed Moriarty perform atrocities that were meant to have been done by others – well, it wouldn’t be in Moriarty’s interest at all to let him live.”

 

John was quiet for a moment.  “He wants to be rid of anyone who might threaten his hold on the title.”

 

“Yes,” said Sherlock, and John didn’t say anything to that.  Sherlock had wrapped and rewrapped his bundle several more times before John spoke again.

 

“I’m surprised you can remember anything he said.”

 

“Most of it is very unfocused,” admitted Sherlock.  “But when you came into the room, and I could smell your scent again – it seemed to put everything right.  I remember what happened when you were there.  And I _know_ you didn’t kill them.”

 

John stilled for a moment, and then went back to stroking Remondin’s neck.  “I… that’s good.  I suppose.”

 

His hand trembled on Remondin; Sherlock remembered the injury – hadn’t Godwin Holmes wanted to see it?  They’d have to forgo the medical attention for now.  In London, however, they were sure to find competent surgeons.... “Anyway,” said Sherlock, “I want to ask Mycroft about it.  He’s older than either of us – he might remember the circumstances that led to Moriarty becoming the earl.”

 

John frowned.  “He saved the King’s life, everyone knows that.”

 

“But _how_?” insisted Sherlock.  “Was the king being poisoned?  Was there an attack?  Did the King fall ill or fall from his horse and knock his head?  Why did anyone need to save the King at all?  You’d think there would be some thrilling story attached to Moriarty – but all anyone ever says is that he did it.  Don’t you think that’s strange?”

 

John flushed.  “I suppose I never thought about it.”

 

“You suppose,” repeated Sherlock, with a bit of annoyance.  “No one in this village ever really _thinks_ about anything.”

 

“Most of us are a little busy trying to have enough to eat at the end of the day, you know,” said John shortly, and Sherlock sighed.

 

“There’s a story to be told that Moriarty clearly doesn’t want anyone to hear.  And I mean to find out what it is, and for that, we need London, and Mycroft.  He knows London better than I do—”

 

“As you haven’t lived there since you were two, I don’t doubt it.”

 

“There is more to Moriarty than we realize,” said Sherlock, ignoring John’s remark.  “You don’t just save the King’s life, and not have stories told about you.  Or have roads leading somewhere that no one knows exist.”

 

“And then what, Sherlock?” asked John quietly. 

 

Sherlock stood, lifting the bundle in his arms.  “I don’t know.”

 

He walked to the horse, and prepared to mount – but John reached out and touched his shoulder, and before Sherlock could even react, had pulled him into his chest, wrapped his arms around him.  Sherlock pressed his nose to John’s neck, the now-familiar scent of _them_ wrapping around him like the warm water in the river in the height of summer, flowing and caressing against his skin.

 

There was still a secret that John wasn’t telling; Sherlock could tell just by the pounding of John’s heart, the way he held Sherlock so tightly to him.  But somehow, it didn’t matter quite so much.  Not just then, with John’s arms around him.

 

“You’re getting your wish,” said John into Sherlock’s hair.  “I’m sorry.”

 

“I know,” said Sherlock, a bit miserable now.  “You bought me bees.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“How did you know?”

 

“I’m very clever,” said John, “and the first time we met, a month ago, there were two stings on your arm, and a new jar of honey in the kitchen near your stepmum.”

 

Sherlock chuckled, and then pressed his nose into John’s skin and began to laugh.  It was terrible laughter, and hurt as much coming out as it did for John to hear it.

 

“Shh,” soothed John, stroking his back, holding him close.  “It’ll be all right.  We’ll be all right.  Stop the tears, love, all will turn out right, you’ll see.”

 

Sherlock stilled against John, turned his head so his cheek rested against his shoulder, and breathed in his scent.  _Love_ , John had called him, without thinking, if the way he continued murmuring softly to him was any indication. 

 

_I won’t love you_ , Sherlock had told him a month ago – the same day that John had noticed the stings on his arm and the jar of honey that had been his reward.  And he didn’t – the small, creeping affection that Sherlock felt for John wasn’t love, couldn’t be love.  It was relief and gratitude and no small amount of desire and concern, and if Sherlock wanted to keep John near him for the rest of his life and every so often wrap himself up in the warm comfort of John’s skin and scent like a blanket… well, that wasn’t love.  That was just affection and the pull of their bond. 

 

_Love_ was terrible and potent and all-consuming and it ended in blood and tears, sent the grief-stricken survivor down a spiraling depression and despair so deep and dark that one son would run to London to escape it, and the other would cling all the tighter in hopes of saving him.

 

No. Sherlock wasn’t going to love John, because everything ended, and Sherlock didn’t want to suffer through what came next.

 

John helped him up on the horse, and then with some effort, managed to climb up behind him. 

 

“Come on,” he said quietly, “let’s go.”

 

Sherlock clicked, pressed his heels into Remondin’s sides, and within a few minutes, the clearing was just as silent and peaceful as it had been before they arrived.

 


End file.
